-OCT 



; i 



- 




HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN: 



EXPLAINED IN 



A SERIES OF LETTERS TO A FRIEND. 



BT 

A CLERGYMAN 

OF THE 

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 




BOSTON: 
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY. 

NEW YORK: 
CHARLES S. FRANCIS AND COMPANY. 

1852. 

t 1 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by 
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS J 

| WAiM If OTP If j 



CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, 
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



PREFACE. 



It is a common fault of mankind to con- 
demn that most which they least understand. 
I have therefore given these Letters to the 
public, with a view to conciliate the opinions 
of those among my friends who are proba- 
bly most surprised and offended by what 
they may be pleased to call my apostasy. 
If in their perusal of my reasons they do not 
find sufficient force of argument to change 
their convictions, they will, at least, meet with 
enough to soften the harshness of their judg- 
ment ; they will see that there may be rea- 
sons, — and those not light ones, — why oth- 
ers should differ with them in the matter of 
their religious belief. I will beg of them, 
therefore, for the sake of that charity which 
hopeth all things, that they will condescend 
to give them a candid and dispassionate con- 
sideration. 



LETTERS. 



\ 



LETTER I. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

You desire to know how I became a Unitarian. 
That is, by what course of reflection and of argu- 
ment I was led to abandon the communion of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, and to embrace a 
system of doctrine and polity so far removed from 
the time-honored faith of my forefathers. I pro- 
pose now, in a series of plain and unstudied epis- 
tles, to gratify that desire; and to the best of my 
humble ability to enlighten what you are pleased 
facetiously to term your darkness. You will not, 
therefore, expect from me a learned treatise on 
theology. That would be to attempt to instruct 
one in every respect my superior. I will but re- 
late to you my own experience, and leave you to 
form your own conclusions. 

You know that mine has never been a prose- 



8 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



lyting spirit, and that I am so much of a philos- 
opher as to believe that mere theological opinions 
have very little to do with true religious sentiment ; 
and that for this reason, at least, the toleration 
I thereby extend to others, I have a right to de- 
mand for myself. I do demand it, not only in 
the name of Christian charity, that greatest of 
virtues, but also in the name of a common erring 
humanity. My appeal is to God, to conscience, 
and to reason. You will, therefore, I doubt not, 
freely accord me the character of candor, and allow 
that I am actuated by a sincere desire to arrive 
at a knowledge of the truth. 

From my earliest years my attention has been 
drawn toward the subject of religion as an object 
of speculative inquiry. It has always appeared 
to me as the first and last great question of inter- 
est to mankind. I have uniformly so esteemed 
and treated it. A feeling of habitual reverence for 
the Supreme Being has ever been a predominant 
characteristic of my nature ; and as this has been 
drawn out and moulded by education, it has deep- 
ened into a sentiment quite independent of the 
bias of sectarianism. It is the one sentiment that 
has been, through my otherwise checkered and 
troubled existence, a source of calm, patient, and 



LETTER I. 



9 



humble hope. "Whatever may have been my 
changes of opinion upon other subjects, my con- 
fidence in the goodness and wisdom of God has 
never forsaken me. And while I now pen these 
words, I lift up my heart toward him moved by 
the most grateful emotions, and render him my 
silent homage for those sweet and elevating hopes 
with which he has been pleased to inspire it. 

And yet I am free to confess that I am not 
what would be called a " devout person," as that 
character is generally understood in the religious 
world. That is to say, I shrink with a natural 
modesty from making my feelings the subject of 
conversation. I cannot but think that real, native 
piety is unobtrusive ; not open-mouthed and vain- 
glorious. The fire that is kindled in the sacred 
precincts of the breast should be guarded like the 
lamp tended by vestal hands in the silence of the 
temple. A man's opinions are for the world ; 
but his thoughts — the silent gushings of his re- 
ligious affections — are for the ear of God alone. 
Let us not, then, be guilty of the vulgar error of 
declaiming upon a man's piety, when the matter 
in controversy is his theological belief. That is 
for the closet; this, for the forum. 

Having this early bias toward the discussion 



10 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



of religious ideas, you may be sure that I could 
not remain an indifferent spectator of those ex- > 
citements and disputes that occasionally arrested 
my attention. Nor did I. I was often carried 
away by them. But seldom for a long time. I 
That which was merely emotional generally gave ] 
way to that which was intellectual. If I became 
at times an enthusiast, it was only that, when the 
ardor of passion had cooled, I might become a 
thinker. So that I soon began to distinguish be- 
tween feeling and thinking, and to refuse my faith 
to every emotion that could not bear the scrutiny 
of reason. For man's claim to dominion over 
inferior nature is founded in the dignity and 
greatness of his intellectual faculties. To say, 
with a great poet of England, " as we feel, we 
think," is to abandon this claim, and forfeit the 
noble distinction of having been created after the 
likeness of our Divine Original. It is under the 
right direction of mind alone, that feelings can 
become to us a source of happiness; for truant 
and ill-regulated desires, that bring misery and 
destruction, are such as refuse the control of rea- 
son ; and whether in religion, morals, literature, or 
politics, — or the ordinary affairs of life, — are sure 
to lead us as far astray from truth, as from the 
dictates of sobriety and prudence. 



LETTER I. 



11 



To say that reason errs, is but saying that we 
are all imperfect. But it is the best guide we 
possess ; and our great care should be to keep it 
free from the bias of party and sectarian feeling, 
to seek by diligent inquiry to enlighten it, and to 
see that its decisions are grounded in righteous- 
ness and truth. Then, though in the course of 
your progress you may fall into some errors of 
opinion, you will emerge again into the light, and 
at length become established in those liberal and 
universal principles which will prove your unfail- 
ing solace and guide to everlasting peace. There- 
fore, I say, seek truth above all things. " The 
truth shall make you free," whatever else be your 
condition in life. 

It was my fortune, before I became mature in 
mind and well-grounded in the knowledge of 
facts, to become sceptical. And it was in this 
condition of mental independence and hardihood, 
that I found plenty of "friends" to assist me with 
their advice, and to confirm in me those dark 
doubts, which end in plunging the soul into the 
trackless mazes of unprofitable speculation. But, 
happily, it was not my destiny to remain there. 
So long as I doubted, I was discontented. Those 
scarcely developed religious intuitions which had 



12 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



been my early joy, became my elder pain. Re- 
ligion I felt to be as necessary to my moral life, 
as the air to the vital action of my physical be- 
ing. I could not do without it. My nature craved 
it. The want of it desolated the world of its 
attractions and its joys. For to shut me up to 
this brief and troubled scene of existence was to 
deny to my hopes every thing that was becoming 
an immortal soul. And where was I to find a 
response to these hopes, but in the Gospels ? I 
therefore set about a course of reading on the 
evidences of Christianity. I became at length 
satisfied of the genuineness and authenticity of 
the books composing the New Testament canon. 
Upon these grounds I again accepted Christian- 
ity, and thought I had learned to appreciate the 
value of the remark, that he who has never doubt- 
ed has never believed. 

I now turned my attention toward the minis- 
try. It presented to my mind a subject for most 
delightful study, and offered a kind of employ- 
ment which would satisfy my ambition of being 
useful to my fellow-mortals. That I was moved 
to take upon me the office of a preacher by those 
supernatural intimations to which some lay claim, 
I would not affirm. I do not know that they 



LETTER I. 



13 



would have been to me a sufficient justification 
of my conduct, if I had. I would choose to be 
guided by something more level to my under- 
standing. 

But I had not been long occupied in my new 
vocation, before other and unanticipated difficul- 
ties began to disturb the serenity of my mind. 
When I began to extend the scope of my theo- 
logical reading, I found that I had pledged myself 
to something beside my Bible. I found that I had 
shut myself up in a cast-iron system, made ven- 
erable by the rust of antiquity, but which could be 
neither expanded nor contracted to suit the wants 
of the age without danger of fracture, and per- 
haps of entire destruction. I found that I had 
bound myself hand and foot with the ligatures of 
a creed, and surrendered to articles and formula- 
ries my whole range of thought and inquiry for 
ever : that I had entered a Church that conceded 
every thing to private judgment, but the liberty 
to think; and that, although not exercising the 
Romish function of infallibility, yet reserved to it- 
self the power to decide in matters of controversy, 
with the charitable allowance of dissent under 
anathema. And all this was supported by a pon- 
derous array of Apostolic authority and precept. 
2 



14 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



I was willing that the Church should have her rea- 
sons ; but I also desired to have mine. While 
she was looking backward, I was looking forward. 
She was conservative, I progressive. 

The first ground of difficulty upon which I 
stumbled was the doctrine of the Trinity, — a 
doctrine about which every body dogmatizes, but 
nobody reasons. Then followed that of a Vica- 
rious Atonement; then, Eternal Punishments, &c, 
&c. To be sure, these doctrines were professedly 
deduced from Scripture. I could not deny that. 
I know it is usual, in such cases, to call upon a 
man to submit his judgment to the authority of 
the Church. It may be safe so to do in some 
cases. And I would willingly have done it for the 
sake of peace, had it been possible. With me it 
was impossible. It seemed to me that I was 
bound to respect the deductions of reason. I was 
answerable to God for its exercise ; and the Church, 
unlike her mother of Rome, offered me no guar- 
antee against this, my individual responsibility ; — 
a fact, I beg leave to remark, in a " holy catholic 
and Apostolic Church," making so large demands 
upon one's credence and submission, which im- 
plies a very great defect in her system. 

Well, I turned to those Scriptures to which the 



LETTER I. 



15 



Church directed me, and to which she herself pro- 
fesses to defer. But while I found that she claimed 
no authority to ordain any thing " contrary to 
God's word written," she limited my faith by her 
interpretation of that word. This was, in fact, 
shutting up that word to me as an individual. 
Which, again, is another defect in her system; 
placing her in a situation by no means so advan- 
tageous as her mother of Rome, who reads the 
word herself alone for her children, and thus saves 
them from the perils of false judgment. 

Hence, I am tempted to say, in this place, that 
the appeal of modern orthodox churches to private 
judgment is a mere pretence. Where there is a 
" confession of faith," a creed, or a fixed rule of 
interpretation, around which a congregation is gath- 
ered, there liberty of thought is no more. And if 
there were needed any further proof of this, it 
might be found in the acrimony of their disputes, 
and the discredit they seek to cast upon the pro- 
fession of Liberal Christianity. In this respect the 
Church of Rome is far more honest. She denies 
the right of private judgment, without qualifica- 
tion, and upon this ground refuses the Bible to 
her laity. She claims infallibility, and she acts in 
accordance with that claim. She comes forward 



16 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



as a mediator between God and man, and she as- 
sumes the responsibility of the act. But the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, while seeking to do all 
that Rome does, shrinks from the avowal of it, 
and thereby exposes at once her pretensions and 
her feebleness. She would have us believe that 
she is infallible, — she would rule us with this rod 
of authority, — but, when pressed by argument, 
gives up her defences, and sinks back into the 
rank of voluntary associations. Surely there can 
be nothing so unbecoming a Church as this. 

But I turned, I say, to the Scriptures. I was 
satisfied of their Divine authority. I was willing to 
abide by what they taught. Taking the Church's 
rule of interpretation, these obnoxious doctrines 
might be, to a certain extent, established; provid- 
ed, always, that you did not exceed that rule. 
Here a difficulty presented itself that seemed at 
first almost insuperable. What was I to do? It 
was no longer possible for me to reject the voice 
of Scripture. And yet could Scripture and an 
enlightened reason disagree? Both bore the im- 
press of their Divine originality. The question 
then occurred, What is inspiration ? Are there 
kinds and degrees of inspiration ? And if so, what 
kind and degree of inspiration are we to accord 



LETTER I. 



17 



to these Scriptures? This question appeared to 
me of very great importance ; for the kind of in- 
spiration claimed by orthodox Christians is called 
"plenary inspiration"; thereby implying that every 
word and every sentence penned by the sacred 
writers was expressed to them by the Holy Spirit. 
Hence, it would leave no room for diversity of in- 
ference in the reader. It would point out and de- 
fine, with more than logical precision, exactly what 
was to be believed. For every word of God must 
be without imperfection or alloy. It must be plain 
to every understanding. Else it would fail of its 
purpose. 

But was this so ? And if so, how are we to 
account for religious differences of opinion ? Dif- 
ferences, indeed, that, taken in detail or in the ag- 
gregate, amount to a denial of every doctrine enun- 
ciated. Here was a question that demanded of 
me a patient and careful solution. It is a ques- 
tion, too, that, in every religious controversy, pre- 
sents itself at the threshold, and requires to be 
definitively disposed of, before any satisfactory pro- 
gress can be made. Permit me, therefore, to make 
it the subject of my next letter. 



2* 



LETTER II. 



New York. January. 1S52. 

My dear Friend, — 

There is a definition of the term Inspiration to 
be found in Webster, as applied to the Scriptures 
of the Old and New Testaments, which I beg leave 
here to quote. He defines it as " the infusion 
of ideas into the mind by the Holy Spirit ; the 
conveying into the minds of men ideas, notices, 
or monitions, by extraordinary or supernatural in- 
fluence ; or, the communication of the Divine Will 
to the understanding by suggestions or impres- 
sions on the mind, which leave no room to doubt 
the reality of their supernatural origin." Webster, 
as you well know, was a Presbyterian ; which 
fact it is important to remark, when one of an op- 
posite opinion is about to make use of his words. 
They are not quoted by me, however, with a view 
to controversy ; but only for the purpose of serv- 



LETTER II. 



19 



ing as a point of agreement between us before 
opening the argument. 

Now I accept this definition. It is broad and 
comprehensive enough for us both. I believe as 
firmly in the Divine inspiration of the sacred 
writers as you do. But I do not affirm, what 
appears to me to be the opinion of your Church, 
that they were preserved from all error ; that is, 
that they were the infallible interpreters of the Di- 
vine Mind in all things and upon every occasion. 
I believe that the degrees of their inspiration were 
various ; and that often they but expressed their 
individual judgment, and desired so to be under- 
stood. This appears to me to be a fact which 
can be easily established. But I shall not avail 
myself of all, or indeed of one tenth part, of the 
proof which it would be no great labor to sum- 
mon to my aid on this occasion. For my part, I 
do not look for the evidences of Divine inspiration 
in the letter of the Bible, but in its spirit. I see 
there a great number of sacred books, written in 
a great variety of styles, — in language, and even 
sentiment, peculiar to the age and country; bear- 
ing the impression of contemporaneous opinions 
and customs, and marked to a greater or less de- 
gree by those crude and undeveloped notions of 



20 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



moral alid physical science common to a remote 
era. In the very first chapter of the book of Gen- 
esis I recognize so distinctly the marks of a Divine 
communication, that, were all the rest of the Bible 
destroyed, I would fix my faith unalterably upon 
the truth of this. Although written some four 
thousand years ago, wjien all knowledge upon the 
subject of cosmogony w r as but the product of spec- 
ulation, — when it had not yet become a science, 
and offered no experimental evidences of its truth, 
— it has yet preceded discovery as a declaration 
of the order of creation, which recent investigation 
is not only daily confirming, but may find con- 
venient to follow as a guide in the formation of 
theory. Hence we affirm that this account of the 
work of the creation is true in its general and 
more important aspects, but inaccurate in its de- 
tails. It was penned, beyond question or doubt 
in my mind, by what Webster calls " the infusion 
of ideas into the mind by the Holy Spirit," — that 
is, by Divine Inspiration ; but, mind you, not by 
" plenary inspiration " ; not in a way to save the 
writer from mingling his own individual precon- 
ceptions with the general impressions received ; 
not in a way to prevent him from imbuing them 
with his characteristic modes of expression and 
perception of the subject. 



LETTER II. 



21 



To insist upon more than this, as some writers 
do, and to demand an unqualified reception of 
every word as of Divine authority, is to leave 
the dissentient no resource but infidelity. It is to 
require more than science is willing to concede, 
or can concede, and therefore to provoke it to be- 
come the assailant. This is not wise. It is inju- 
rious to the interests of true religion. That some 
parts of Scripture will bear this close construction 
of a plenary inspiration I willingly allow. As, for 
instance, the Decalogue ; and others which it 
would be tedious, if not invidious, to refer to. 
But it will not admit of a general application. 

Take the history of the patriarchs, of the judges, 
the heroes, the kings of Israel, and run your eye 
carefully through the incidents and sentiments, 
moral, religious, social, or political, by w T hich they 
were severally distinguished, and you must dis- 
cover a great deal for exception, if not for positive 
rebuke. The best of these were men who were 
not free from the prejudices, the superstition, the 
narrow views, and often depraved passions, of their 
time. So will you often find their very cruelties 
and vices not only related without censure by the 
sacred penmen, but often indirectly applauded. 
The very Psalms of David have much, amid their 



22 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



rich bursts of eloquence, and of tender and holy- 
feeling, that shocks the moral sense, and makes 
the soul shudder at their ferocity. They reveal 
to us not merely what the Spirit suggested, but 
also what that " man of blood," as the prophet 
calls him, thought, and felt, and uttered, unmind- 
ful of the Divine mind. 

But it is not my desire to multiply instances. 
I seek but to establish a principle which I con- 
ceive to be of the first importance to a right un- 
derstanding and rational appreciation of the worth 
of Scripture. I would wish to discredit that su- 
perstitious reverence which seeks to make them 
responsible for more than they can bear; which, 
indeed, ministers to sectarian bigotry, but not to 
the growth of a large and comprehensive spirit 
of brotherly love. 

Christianity as an institution does not rest upon 
rites and ceremonies, or upon particular creeds and 
ecclesiastical organizations ; nor does it depend for 
its right application and development upon par- 
ticular modes of interpretation. It is a spirit, — 
a life, — speaking to and awakening the religious 
intuitions of its disciples, and giving them form 
and expression. To apprehend this aright, we 
must apply it to our thoughts and conduct, as 



LETTER II. 



23 



they relate to God and our neighbor. "We talk 
among ourselves about what is fundamental in 
Christianity, — that upon which orthodox sects 
agree. But we do not mean by this the element 
of religious principle, but its doctrinal expression. 
We fall into the error of supposing that the dog- 
mas of the Trinity, of Vicarious Atonement, of 
Eternal Punishments, &c, comprise the essentials 
of a religious belief. Yet these dogmas ever have 
been, and ever wall be, disputed. They are ex- 
ternal to Christianity. They belong to what is 
called the Church ; and the Church is the product 
of human prejudice, as we see it in its present 
visible organization. That which is fundamental 
and essential in Christianity is its spirit, and this 
is permanent. It requires neither creed nor for- 
mulary for its preservatiou. Its life is in the 
human soul ; and when it dies out there, no dog- 
ma or ecclesiastical order can revive it. It is the 
function of so-called religious bodies by teaching 
and association to sustain it there; to disseminate 
its influences ; to inculcate with a disinterested 
zeal its precepts; and to avoid, of all things, the 
error of attempting to limit it by denominations. 
It was the one great purpose of its Founder to 
deliver it from the hands of ritualists and doctors 



24 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



of the law. It was to address itself to men as 
to little children. It was itself to be received as a 
little child. And all were thus to be gathered to- 
gether in the presence of one Father in heaven. 

In regard to the first propagators of this relig- 
ion, the Apostles, through whom we receive it, it 
is not so much a matter of consequence to us 
whether they were learned men, as whether they 
were honest, men of integrity, men of truth. We 
look to their moral much more thaji to their in- 
tellectual qualifications for the labor to which they 
were called. That they possessed these qualifica- 
tions in the highest possible degree; that they not 
only sacrificed their lives as a testimony to its 
Divine origin, but, still more, lived a life of trial 
and suffering, of reproach and persecution, in ex- 
emplification of its power, — is evidence enough 
of this. It is a kind of evidence that increases in 
value the more it is examined. It is sufficient to 
establish Christianity as an historical fact, at least. 

But tried by the standard of a contemporary lit- , 
erary judgment, they were pronounced to be " un- § 
learned and ignorant men," This is what one of 
their own number records of them, even after the 
Pentecostal illumination. And I am not aware 
that they claimed for themselves — with the ex- 



LETTER II. 



ception of St. Paul, and possibly of St. Luke — 
any thing more. "With extraordinary spiritual in- 
sight, with a momentary gift of tongues, with 
rare eloquence, with a power over nature almost 
omnipotent, they were yet simple-minded, credu- 
lous men. And, as a natural consequence, when 
they attempted to discourse upon secular matters, 
or even upon matters of a religious character which 
exceeded the limits of their mission, they indulged 
speculation, and sometimes fell into error. Though 
their gifts may have made them under some cir- 
cumstances presumptuous, they never claimed to 
be infallible. They had the treasure confided them 
in earthen vessels, that the power might be seen 
to be of God, and not of men. They were con- 
sciously the " weak things," and the " things that 
were despised," in the presence of the logical acute- 

! ness, the philosophic lore, the polish, of the great 
men of their day. And obviously these facts were 
predetermined for them by a wisdom above their 
own. They left more room for the display of the 

; spirit that wrought in and through them. They 

i 1 left the great truths of the Gospel to be their own 
witnesses to the hearts of men. They left, too, 

; profitable occupation for those who should peruse 
their words, in the application of an impartial 

3 

J 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



spirit of criticism to what they wrote. Let us not, 
therefore, fall into the vulgar error of supposing 
we can treat their writings with too much freedom, 
so long as we treat them with candor and impar- 
tiality. 

There is a passage in 2 Tim. iii. 16, which is 
often quoted to sustain the doctrine of a plenary 
inspiration. It is this : — " All Scripture is given by 
inspiration of God, and is profitable," &c. Now 
there are two objections to the reception of this 
passage in the sense applied to it. The first is, 
St. Paul had in view the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures, and not the New ; for the latter were not 
yet collected and acknowledged. Therefore it can- 
not apply in the latter respect. The second is, 
that, the particle mi being omitted, as Clarke af- 
firms, by almost all the Versions, and by many of 
the Fathers, leaves us at liberty to question the : 
rendering. Taking the best authorities for our 
guide, we should write the sentence as follows : — 

" ILacra ypacprj OtoiTvevcrTOs, axpeXLjios npos SiSacrKakiav, k. t. X. 

— Every scripture (or writing) divinely inspired 
is profitable," &c. For St. Paul would hardly ven- 
ture to say that all writing is divinely inspired, 
even admitting his reference to the Old Testa- 
ment; since at least the historical parts of that 



LETTER II. 



27 



might, in many instances, be open to the question 
without suspicion of irreverence in the objector. 

So, in regard to the claim the Apostle seems 
to make, in a second instance, for a Divine au- 
thority in the enunciation of certain general prin- 
ciples in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, when 
he says he does not speak "in the words which 

man's wisdom teacheth, — ev MaKrots dvSpco7TLVT]s \6yois, 

— but which the Holy Ghost teacheth"; it must 
be plain to any candid mind consulting the con- 
text, that the rendering in this instance should 
be far more free, as he evidently refers to the 
manner of disputation or style of oratory com- 
mon to the Greek sophists and rhetoricians, and 
not to the particular words. St. Paul meant to 
say, that he did not depend upon force of verbal 
argument, but upon Divine influence, — not upon 
oratorical show, but upon demonstration of the 
spirit and of power. It is therefore an unfair use 
of the passage to adduce it in support of the 
doctrine of plenary inspiration. 

Dr. "Whitby, a learned divine of the Church of 
England, thus writes respecting it : — " That it was 
not always so is evident, both from the considera- 
tion that they (the Apostles) were hagiographers, 
who are supposed to be left to the use of their 



28 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



own words, and from the variety of style in which 
they wrote, and from the solecisms which are some- 
times visible in their compositions ; and more es- 
pecially from their own words, which manifestly 
show that, in some cases, they had no such sug- 
gestion from the Holy Ghost as doth imply that 
he dictated those words unto them." And this 
testimony is worth so much the more, that it comes 
from a writer of great authority in the Church, and 
professedly entertaining orthodox opinions. 

But it must be evident to every person care- 
fully perusing the Epistles, that these exceptions 
obtain to a very great extent. How often are 
these Epistles occupied with matters of a merely 
secular or personal nature ! how often do they de- 
scend to the discussion of topics of local and tem- 
porary interest! how often contain expressions of 
surprise, fear, doubt, implying the most complete 
uncertainty of purpose and intelligence ! " By Syl- 
vanus, a faithful brother, as I suppose" says St. 
Peter. Then St. Paul, — Tvxbv TrapafievS, — « Perhaps 
I will abide, yea, winter with you." Again, " I 
hope, by your prayers, to be given unto you," &c. 
" I hope to come to you," &c. " For," again says 
Whitby, " Spes est incertce rei nomen, the word 
hope implies an uncertainty, whereas the Holy 



LETTER II. 



29 



Spirit cannot be uncertain of any thing ; nor can 
we think he would inspire men to speak uncer- 
tainly." And this looks very little like plenary 
inspiration. 

Indeed, we sometimes find St. Paul committing 
mistakes, or uttering contradictory counsels, that 
are far more serious than these slight expressions 
of uninspired mind. For example, in 1 Cor. vii. 38, 
he advises against marriage ; and yet, in 1 Tim. 
ii. 15, he tells us that a woman " shall be saved 
in child-bearing " ; — more properly " through child- 
bearing," — o-G)6r}(r€Tai de Sta tt)s TtKvoyovlas, " if she 

continues in faith," &c. That is, she shall be 
saved through the instrumentality of child-bearing, 
if she observe the usual conditions of a godly life. 
Thus making child-bearing the saving act, with- 
out which godliness would profit her nothing ; from 
which doctrine it might be maliciously inferred, that 
the writer desired to secure this end independently 
of the marriage contract. But it would be wrong 
to doubt the Apostle's morality. Either he had 
forgotten what he had before written to the Corin- 
thians, or he had seen reasons for changing his 
mind; or he wrote in a fit of abstraction, his at- 
tention being occupied with something else. In 
either category, it must be conceded that he some- 



30 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



times — and these times might easily be shown 
to be many — wrote without the special direction 
and guidance of the Divine Spirit. 

But these errors do not in the least militate 
against the truth of the Scriptures. They are what 
are to be looked for in every thing passing through 
human hands. The clearest mediums deflect the 
stream of light that falls upon them ; and how 
much more shall the mind of man, with its pre- 
possessions, its passions, and silly egotisms, distort 
and obscure the ray of heavenly truth that seeks 
to penetrate it, or to find its expression in our 
stammering tongue! So we may say of the va- 
riety and discrepancy of statement made in the 
Gospels of particular transactions, that, while the 
different aspects under which they were seen by 
the different writers go far to establish the truth 
of the transactions themselves, they at the same 
time forbid the inference that their separate ac- 
counts w T ere the infallible dictate of the same spir- 
itual intelligence; because, if they wrote, in every 
instance, under such special guidance, their ac- 
counts could not vary, — they would relate, not 
merely what each writer saw for himself, but actu- 
ally and solely what was said and done, — neither 
more nor less. For the Holy Spirit would report 



LETTER II. 



facts and words in their entirety, and not by par- 
tial and sometimes contradictory particulars. In 
a question respecting the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of the Gospel narratives, these discrepancies, 
no less than the personal opinions of the writers, 
may go to establish a historical fact ; but in so far 
as it regards their " plenary inspiration," they must 
necessarily have a contrary effect. This must be 
left out of the account ; for to insist upon it under 
these circumstances, is to repel the confidence of 
the intelligent inquirer, not to secure his faith. 



LETTER III. 



New York, January, 1852, 

My dear Friend, — 

I did wish to embrace within the space allot- 
ted to a single letter all I designed to say upon 
this preliminary question of inspiration. For it 
is not my intention to treat it at large, since to 
do this would require me to write a book of pretty 
fair dimensions. But there remains one very im- 
portant fact to speak of, to which I will now beg 
your attention. Indeed, I might be safe in affirm- 
ing that it is a fact which covers the whole ground, 
and is of itself alone decisive of the matter in con- 
troversy. I may state it as being the general im- 
pression under which the volume of the New Tes- 
tament was penned by the Apostles. This impres- 
sion, or rather belief, was this : that the world 
was to come to an end, and the day of final 
judgment to appear, before the generation of men 



LETTER III. 



33 



then living should pass away. I say, it was 
under this solemn and ominous impression that 
the Gospels and Epistles were written ; and writ- 
ten, therefore, as we may safely affirm, but to 
meet the demands of a present occasion, with- 
out the remotest reference in the minds of the 
writers to the wants and capacities of a distant 
era, such as ours. And further, neither is it irrev- 
erent nor in any degree hazardous to say, that 
they would necessarily, therefore, be written in 
haste ; and in a haste that would naturally betray 
the writers into inaccuracy of statement in regard 
to many unimportant facts, as well as give occa- 
sion for the expression of individual opinions which 
were rather the reflection of the age than the dic- 
tate of supernal wisdom. The influence of these 
facts upon their productions, it would be difficult 
fully to estimate. That it was great, we have the 
evidence before us. So also was it as a coopera- 
tive influence shown in their zeal, their sufferings, 
their labors, their patience, their faith, their cour- 
age ; and above all in their honest simplicity, their 
truthfulness, their candor. And thus, while they 
win our entire confidence in their veracity, they 
unconsciously guard us against the error of looking 
upon them as infallible counsellors in regard to 



34 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



matters of which we are fully as competent to 
form a correct judgment as they were. The prin- 
ciples, however, which are our guides in the forma- 
tion of such judgment, it is but fair to confess, 
have been derived from the study of what they 
themselves deliver. It is by the light of their own 
wisdom we read them. 

Upon this belief of the Apostles, manifestly pro- 
ceeding from a misunderstanding of the words 
addressed to them by Christ as recorded in the 
twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, the Rev. Dr. 
Barnes, an eminent and learned Presbyterian di- 
vine, makes these observations : — "I do not know 
that the proper doctrine of inspiration suffers, if 
we admit that the Apostles were ignorant of the 
exact time when the world would close ; or even 
that, in regard to the precise period when that 
would take place, they might be in error." And 
again: "The Apostles were in fact ignorant and 
mistaken in regard to at least the time of the occur- 
rence of one future event, the death of John, xxi. 23. 
There is therefore no departure from the proper 
doctrine of inspiration, in supposing that the Apos- 
tles were not inspired on these subjects, and that 
they might be ignorant like others." 

Professor Bush, in his Anastasis, page 197, then. 



LETTER III. 



35 



if not now, a defender of the doctrine of plenary- 
inspiration, says: — "Acting as the organs of cer- 
tain Divine communications, it would be natu- 
ral that they [the Apostles] should exercise their 
thoughts upon the themes that thus expressed 
themselves through them. But the judgments that 
they personally formed on these disclosures, being 
distinct from the truths themselves, may not have 
been free from error, simply for the reason, that 
they did not come really within the scope of their 
inspiration. The mind of the spirit is one thing, 
and their personal view of it another ; and it is 
very conceivable that we, from having more am- 
ple data, may be better able to judge of this mean- 
ing than they were.' 5 

These opinions, which, I believe, are coincident 
with those generally entertained by Unitarians, 
may be very easily corroborated by reference to 
the sacred text itself. As, for instance, St. Paul, 
in momentary expectation of the appearance " of 
the great day," says to the Thessalonians : " And 
we which are alive and remain, shall be caught 
' up together with them in the clouds, to meet the 
Lord in the air." So St. Peter admonishes his 
readers : " The end of all things is at hand ; be 
ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." St. 



36 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



John goes so far as to say : " Little children, it 
is the last time ; and as ye have heard that Anti- 
christ should come, even now are there many Anti- 
christs ; whereby we know that it is the last time." 
So in Phil. iv. 5, " The Lord is at hand." Heb. x. 
25, " Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves to- 
gether, as the manner of some is, but exhorting 
one another ; and so much the more as ye see 
the day approaching." Rom. xiii. 12, " The night 
is far spent, the day is at hand." James v. 8, 9, 
" For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh," and, 
" behold, the Judge standeth before the door." 
Rev. xxii. 10, " And he saith unto me, Seal not 
the sayings of the prophecy of this book ; for the 
time is at hand." 

We see very clearly by these extracts, which 
might be easily extended, that the Apostles were 
not men of an infallible judgment ; and that they 
could be mistaken upon a subject of the most 
engrossing interest to themselves and to the age 
in which they lived. This is also further confirmed 
by what St. Peter says, when scoffers in^ his day, 
observing the language of the preachers of Chris- 
tianity who predicted the speedy dissolution of the 
earth, called for the evidence of the approaching 
catastrophe, and remarked, that " all things con- 



LETTER III. 



37 



tinue as they were from the beginning of the 
creation." Upon this the Apostle takes occasion 
to warn them that the day of the Lord " cometh 
as a thief in the night" ; and, as possibly dis- 
trusting his own interpretation of the event, in- 
geniously qualifies the prediction by saying, that 
" a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day." 

Now, while we reverence the Bible as the first 
of books, — the original fountain of truth, — the 
only record of the revelation of the will of God, 
and of the moral relation which he sustains to- 
ward his creatures, — are we therefore bound to 
accept without discrimination all that book con- 
tains ? Shall we be permitted to make no allow- 
ances for human error ? for personal failings and 
prejudices in the writers ? for circumscribed views 
of physical, no less than of moral truth ? This 
would be most unreasonable and absurd. Neither 
is it necessary to a devout and profitable use of 
the sacred oracles. These errors, however zeal- 
ously denied, cannot be hid. They must be ac- 
knowledged and accounted for. And when the 
keen edge of philosophical criticism, is applied to 
them, they must yield to its painful surgery. But 
this will not affect that which is vital, which is 

4 



38 HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

permanent and divine. This will remain, and the 
spirit that giveth understanding will still irradiate 
the page with its divine effulgence. 

This " proper doctrine of inspiration," of which 
the Rev. Dr. Barnes speaks, and which is allowed 
by many illustrious names among Biblical exposi- 
tors, is all that we desire to avail ourselves of, 
to settle upon the foundation of Scriptural truth, 
and the accordant decisions of common sense, 
those doctrines which alone appear to us as wor- 
thy their exalted source. And it is no small ad- 
vantage gained to the cause of truth, when we 
can advance toward a free discussion of the the- 
ological ideas of the day, unfettered by those 
dogmas of church and authority with which they 
are ordinarily encumbered ; when we can bring 
the question at issue directly before the bar of 
reason, and there have it adjudicated in the appli- 
cation of those rules of moral evidence which 
yield to the influences neither of circumstance nor [ 
of custom. It becomes then no longer a contro- 
versy about texts, but respecting principles eternal 
and immutable in themselves. 

And here a reflection arises to which I beg 
leave to give expression, although not immedi- 
ately relevant to the topic under consideration. 



LETTER III. 



39 



It is this, — that this fact of a general expectation 
of the coming of the " last day " is singularly un- 
favorable to modern hierarchal pretension. How 
is it in any degree credible, that the idea of form- 
ing and perpetuating an ecclesiastical organization 
could have occurred to the minds of these earnest 
and devout men, under circumstances to them 
prophetic of the near approach of an appalling 
and universal catastrophe ? of an event which 
every rising of the sun might usher in, and which 
would wrap the whole world in conflagration and 
ruin ? It is evident, even in the manner of 
their hurrying from place to place to preach the 
Gospel, and to declare to every creature under 
heaven its glad tidings, that they looked but a 
very short way into the future. Wherever they 
made converts, and collected a body of disci- 
ples together under the roof of some hospitable 
neophyte, there they established the church for the 
time being ; and, leaving it in charge of some 
able member, or bishop, elder, deacon, presbyter, 
prophet, or apostle, sought a new neld of labor. 
When special instructions or advice were required, 
epistles were written to be read to the congrega- 
tions. But these epistles were evidently distrib- 
uted with the improvident generosity of the Si- 

I 



40 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



byllse, and preserved to our time by a series of 
remarkable providences totally beyond the purview 
of their several writers. It was the same with 
the Gospels. The Apostles as chief would natu- 
rally take the direction of affairs ; but we do not 
perceive that they established any orders in the 
ministry, save such as the function of the person 
exercising it indicated. They built no churches; 
they put forth no liturgy. Every man was left 
to improve the gift that was in him, in accord- 
ance with a sober judgment and a proper regard 
to decorum. The Lord's Supper was a daily 
sacrament observed till his coming again, by all 
who then looked for him. For, as the pious Dr. 
Watts remarks, " They supposed the day of the 
Lord was just appearing." What call, then, had 
they to draw up rules of precedence and govern- 
ment for popes and bishops ? What, suppose you, 
could they have answered, when asked their opin- 
ion of the virtues that inhere in Apostolic order; 
or how far we were to recognize the divine right 
of a bishop to exercise irresponsible powers ? 
The whole appears manifestly absurd, and in ut- 
ter repugnance to every thought expressed by 
them. 

In saying this, I am not seeking to deny that 



LETTER III. 



41 



Episcopacy is a historical fact which finds its 
birth in a remote antiquity ; or that it appeared 
in a crude form before the close of the second 
century, which the three following centuries ma- 
tured. But I have not the most distant belief 
in its Apostolic appointment, — much less in any 
authority peculiar to it, save such as it derives 
from the consent of congregations and conventions. 
Had the Apostles been gifted with a divine pres- 
cience which beheld the Church in her future ar- 
ray as she appeared long after their decease ; had 
they been able to descry the abuses of power, 
the corruptions, the licentiousness, the superstition, 
that distracted and deformed it, through the agency 
of episcopal pretension, — surely they would never 
have delegated their authority to a bishop. 

Nor would I wish to be understood in these 
remarks to undervalue the episcopal form of 
church government, as an efficient and highly 
commendable polity. On the contrary, I admire 
it, where a bishop comports himself with meek- 
ness and Christian humility ; and I could wish 
to see it adopted among Unitarians, as a means 
of consolidating and giving a consistent action to 
their different churches. But the bishop should be 
held to as strict an accountability to his people, as 



42 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



a political officer is to his constituency ; and he 
should be made to feel that he held no authority 
by divine right, but by republican suffrage. A 
bishop and a liturgy, — a splendid ritual and a 
simple faith, — are what, above all things, I de- 
sire to see in a church. These, while they would 
give strength and efficient action to the ecclesias- 
tical body, and thereby assist its progress, would 
also offer to the mind and heart attractions pro- 
motive of personal devotion, and solemnize our 
hours of public worship. Indeed, they would soon 
become to us occasions of the most pleasurable 
feelings, and wed our affections to the Church as 
to the common mother of our religious expe- 
riences. 

It is the narrow creed, the unbending bigotry, 
the clerical pretension, the idolatrous reverence for 
rites, that repels and offends. 

Before closing this letter, allow" me to refer you 
to the last production of the late Samuel Taylor 
Coleridge, the philosopher and poet, entitled " Con- 
fessions of an Inquiring Spirit"; a little volume 
devoted entirely to the discussion of this ques- 
tion of plenary inspiration. The latter years of 
Coleridge's life were distinguished by a tone of 
piety characteristic of his ardent nature ; and by 



LETTER III. 



43 



a strict adherence to the tenets of the Episcopal 
Church in England. He was in every thing or- 
thodox, save upon this one question, which his 
critical judgment indignantly discarded as " super- 
stitious and unscriptural." 

It would be drawing too largely upon your 
patience to present you with extracts from this 
work. Indeed, this could not well be done with- 
out breaking in upon the continuity of the argu- 
ment, and requiring of me a running commentary 
to present it in its completeness, which would oc- 
cupy too much space. In his sixth letter, he re- 
marks : — "But I am weary of discussing a tenet, 
which the generality of divines and the leaders 
of the religious public have ceased to defend, 
and yet continue to assert or imply. The ten- 
dency manifested in this conduct, the spirit of 
this and the preceding century, on which, not in- 
deed the tenet itself, but the obstinate adherence to 
it against the clearest light of reason and experi- 
ence^ is grounded, — this it is w T hich, according to 
my conviction, gives the venom to the error, and 
justifies the attempt to substitute a juster view." 

It is indeed a remarkable fact, that, in this coun- 
try no less than in England, this doctrine of a 
plenary inspiration is affirmed by men of ortho- 



J 



44 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN* 



dox persuasions, whose learning and talents give 
us every reason to suspect, not their judgment, 
but their sincerity. Their sincerity, not as men of 
religious sentiments and belief, but as scholars ; 
and as being too timid to brave the consequences 
of an open avowal of what they confess to them- 
selves in the secrecy and quiet of their own stud- 
ies. In this I believe them to be honest in their 
views of what is best for the religious world; and 
that, in practising this reservation, they are ac- 
tuated by the best of motives. But a doctrine 
which requires such a sacrifice for its support, had 
better come to the ground at once. On this point 
Coleridge remarks, in his fourth letter : — " Such, 
for instance, are the arguments drawn from the 
anticipated loss and damage that would result from 
its abandonment [the doctrine of plenary inspira- 
tion] ; — as that it would deprive the Christian world 
of its only infallible arbiter in questions of faith 
and duty, suppress the only common and inappeal- 
able tribunal ; that the Bible is the only religious 
bond of union and ground of unity among Prot- 
estants ; and the like. For the confutation of this 
whole reasoning, it might be sufficient to ask : — 
Has it produced these effects ? Would not the 
contrary statement be nearer to the fact ? What 



LETTER III. 



45 



did the churches of the first four centuries hold 
upon this point ? To what did they attribute the 
rise and multiplication of heresies ? Can any 
learned and candid Protestant affirm that there 
existed and exists no ground for the charges of 
Bossuet and other eminent Romish divines ? " 

The time will come, doubtless, when this tenet 
must be abandoned ; but it will result in the aban- 
donment of orthodoxy with it. For as both stand 
together from mutual support, so will both fall, 
and thus pull each other down. 



LETTER IV. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

I doubt that you will find a man willing to 
affirm that the Apostles were Trinitarians ; that 
is to say, that this concrete idea of a tripartite 
Divinity ever had an existence in their minds, as 
the modern Trinitarian apprehends it. You may 
say, that you find the component parts of such 
an idea in their writings, and that you have but 
to bring them together to exhibit the fact. But 
it seems to me that this is merely begging the 
question. For it is not whether they denominated 
those three personalities, Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, each separately a divine person ; but wheth- 
er they ever conceived of them collectively as one 
God. Now I think it is not affirming too much 
to say, that they never did so conceive of them. 
For, if they had, it would have been with them a 



LETTER IV. 



47 



cardinal doctrine, as it is with you, and they would 
so have stated it. It is quite impossible that they 
could have failed to do so. Could it have been 
of less importance in their view of it than in 
yours ? Surely you will not say so. Why, then, 
do we not find it expressed ? And you, Bible 
Christians, why do you make that doctrine a con- 
dition of membership in your churches, which is not 
so expressed in the Bible ? I think in this you 
exceed your commission, and are guilty of a gross 
contradiction. Rome has a right to do so, be- 
cause she does not receive the Bible as a rule of 
faith. Do be consistent, and declare your infalli- 
bility, and then you may impose what articles of 
belief you please, nor trouble yourself about Scrip- 
tural authority. 

I have said that the Apostles were not Trinita- 
rians. For if they had been, they would not only 
have said so themselves, but the Church would 
not have been compelled to wait until the fourth 
century to hear of it. And I say this now spe- 
cially in reference to what you call the third per- 
son in the Trinity; that is, the Holy Ghost, or 
Holy Spirit. Now, although the Holy Spirit is 
often spoken of in a personal sense in our trans- 
lation, it is still always as a procession or influ- 



48 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



ence ; never as a God. Neither is worship ever 
offered it. When Peter said to Ananias, " Why- 
hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy 
Ghost?" and then added, "Thou hast not lied 
unto men, but unto God," he did not by this im- 
ply that the Holy Ghost was a personal god. For 
one person might say to another, with perfect pro- 
priety, Why do you speak against the rays of 
light? you do not speak against a torch, but the 
sun ; and yet nobody would misunderstand him 
to mean that the light that proceeded from the 
sun was substantially the sun itself, but only its 
influence. The Holy Spirit is often spoken of 
without an expressed reference to God; but it is 
still obviously in a secondary sense, — as his spirit. 
So is it spoken of as the spirit of Christ; but im- 
pliedly, at least, as proceeding from the Father 
through the Son. " For God giveth not the spirit 
by measure unto him." Now Christ was but the 
agent of this influence. "The Spirit of the Lord I 
is upon me, because he hath anointed me to 
preach the Gospel to the poor," said Jesus, ap- 
plying the words of Isaiah to himself. So was he 
"led up of the Spirit into the wilderness," &c. So 
we are told that " God is a spirit " ; from which 
we must conclude that the Holy Spirit is his 



LETTER IV, 



49 



spirit, — is himself, — not a separate personality. 
God is one, and there is none other. His spirit 
is present everywhere ; that is, God is omnipres- 
ent. Is there any other divine spirit but the spir- 
it of God? I doubt that you will dare to say, 
Yes. There is no Holy Ghost constituting a third 
person in the Trinity. It is superfluous. It is an 
entire misconception. 

It does not signify that Jesus tells his disciples 
that he will pray the Father to send the Com- 
forter, the Paraclete, or Holy Spirit unto them, 
more than that God will specially visit them with 
his divine spirit; that is, he being himself a spir- 
it, will descend upon them, &c. To imply more 
than this, is to affirm a polytheism as gross as 
the Greek or Roman. " Hear, O Israel, the Lord 
thy God is one Lord." 

It can hardly be necessary to say, that the words 
found in 1 John v. 7 are spurious, — interpola- 
tions, made by the hand of some Trinitarian more 
zealous than wise; for to resort to such a trick 
to support a dogma is equivalent to the con- 
fession that it could find no countenance in the 
genuine portions of the Scriptures. In old edi- 
tions of the Bible these passages were inclosed in 
brackets, as doubtful. Now the brackets are omit- 

5 



50 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



ted, and the words are set as a trap for the igno- 
rant. This is not right; and is doubly wrong in 
a follower of Christ. 

And now in regard to the divinity of Christ, 
as the second person of the Trinity. That Christ 
was a divine person, I will readily grant. So, 
also, will I agree with you in affirming his pre- 
existence ; and accept the offices ascribed to him 
as Redeemer, Mediator, Saviour, &c. I find no 
difficulty in doing this; but I do find a difficulty 
quite insuperable in the way of receiving your dog- 
ma respecting his identity with God. Here we 
separate; but to meet again upon another fact, — 
that Christ was an object of worship to some, if 
not to all, of the Apostles, and to the ante-Nicene 
Christians. But he was worshipped, not as God, 
but as a god. In this distinction we may find a 
solution of our theological difficulties. I will now 
offer a few reflections upon it. 

The age in which Christ appeared upon earth, 
you very well know, was an age of hero-worship. 
Men were not then very particular in regard to 
whom they paid divine honors, provided they were 
men of mark in the world ; especially if they were 
celebrated for deeds of military prowess, — for great 
wisdom or civic virtues. Thus the emperors of 



LETTER IV. 



51 



Rome were generally deified in those days, and 
their images set up in some of the provinces, to 
which offerings were made. Indeed, it may be 
doubted whether there was a nation upon earth, 
at that time, in which hero-worship was not prac- 
tised, if we except the Jews, who, in some re- 
spects, were but little better. The literature and 
philosophy of the age were imbued with the same 
spirit. It was everywhere, and in all men's minds; 
so much so, that the Jewish faith was called athe- 
%S7n ) because it recognized but one Supreme Being 
to whom worship was exclusively due. Nor were 
the greatest minds of the day free from this su- 
perstition. It was not merely the unlearned, but 
the orator, the poet, the historian, the statesman, 
who accepted the popular mythology and the "doc- 
trines of demons." The New Testament itself fur- 
nishes us with evidence of this prevalent disposi- 
tion ; for we find that even Cornelius the centu- 
rion, a man approved of God, and from whom we 
should have expected better things, when Peter 
entered his house, fell down at his feet and wor- 
shipped him. Whereupon Peter raised him up, 
and found it necessary to say to him, — " Stand 
up ; I myself also am a man." So w 7 hen St. Paul 
cured the impotent man at Lystra, the people 



52 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



cried out that he and Barnabas were gods, and they 
were about "to do sacrifice unto them/' when the 
Apostles with much difficulty restrained them. 

Hence, that, under these circumstances, Christ 
should have been worshipped by his disciples, is 
not at all remarkable. He was, in every respect, 
superior to the heroes and divinities of the pagan 
world, even allowing these to have been all that 
they were claimed to be. And, for this reason 
alone, I should say it were wonderful if he had 
not been so worshipped. Pliny, in his letter to 
Trajan, and Lucian, in his life of Peregrina, affirm 
that he was. And so notorious must this have 
been, that Tiberius proposed to the Roman Senate 
to enroll him among the number of the gods then 
in the Pantheon. Lampridius informs us, that the 
Emperor Alexander Severus had a chapel in which 
were the images of Apollonius, Christ, Abraham, 
and Orpheus, whom he regarded as gods. 

The disputed passage in Josephus, when prop- 
erly regarded, must add force to these remarks that 
Christ was regarded as a god; for, were it true 
that the writer recognized him as the Messiah, it 
would have been impossible for him not to have 
enrolled himself among his followers. The words, 
" This was the Christ," ( f o Xpio-ros ovtos fa) are 



LETTER IV. 



53 



doubtless an interpolation ; for the same writer in 
another place says, speaking of James, that he 
was "the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ." 
Now, to justify this conclusion, we have but to 
quote what he says in the first sentence of this 
passage : — " Now there was about this time Jesus, 
a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a manP 
What else 6ould he call him, while denying him 
to be the Messiah, but a god? I am quite satis- 
fied that such was the writer's opinion. So the 
accusations brought against the Christians by Cel- 
sus and Porphyry were, not that they were Trini- 
tarians, but worshippers of Christ as a god. The 
disquisitions of Origen, whose opinions respecting 
the person of Christ seem to have been very un- 
settled, — as were those of all the ante-Nicene 
fathers, — would lead us to suppose that he looked 
upon him rather as a separate Divinity than as 
one with the Father; rather, in the language of 
Justin Martyr, as a " second god." And this would 
seem to be a necessary consequence of the ab- 
sence among them of the Trinitarian idea. They 
worshipped Christ. They could not worship him 
in a way of which they had not, as yet, any set- 
tied notion. Hence, they could worship him only 
as a god. No matter under what name this wor- 



54 HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

ship was addressed to him ; whether as the word, 
the son, the ivisdom, the floiver or splendor, of the 
Supreme Creator; it was not as to an equal with 
him, — it was not as to one of a tripartite Divin- 
ity. This is abundantly evident. 

Now it seems to me, that, if we will carry this 
idea with us into the perusal of the Epistles found 
in the New Testament, we shall find no difficulty 
in discovering it to have been that of the Apostles. 
Christ is indeed a divine person, but always in 
subordination to God, — inferior, — the man whom 
he hath appointed to be lord over all things, — the 
head of the Church, &c, &c. 

Again, considering that the Apostles were Jews, 
it would be doing violence to their characters to 
believe that they could ever have been persuaded 
to accept of another person as the equal of Jeho- 
vah. They might, and beyond question did, be- 
lieve in the existence of inferior divinities, — other 
gods, — but not as they believed in the Lord God 
of Israel. We say this, because it is abundantly 
evident that such was the belief of some of the 
writers of the Old Testament Scriptures. As, for 
instance, we find Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, 
saying to the latter, Exodus xviii. 11, " Now I 
know that the Lord is greater than all gods [Elo- 



LETTER IV. 



55 



him] ; for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, 
he was above them.' 7 So in Exodus xxii. 28, 
" Thou shalt not revile the gods [Elohirn], nor 
curse the ruler of thy people," So in Psalm xcvii. 
7, in which they are contrasted with idols, " Con- 
founded be all they that serve graven images, and 
boast themselves of idols ; worship him, all ye gods 
[Elohim]." And the witch of Endor — whose lan- 
guage goes to prove, if nothing more, the existence 
of the popular notion — says to Saul, " I saw gods 
[Elohim] ascending out of the earth." And in 
many other places. 

Indeed, let any intelligent person, without pre- 
possessions in regard to the subject, read through 
the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, 
and I am persuaded that, whatever may be the 
estimate he shall form of the character of Jesus, 
he will by no means regard him as God Almighty. 
So, let him go through the Epistles, and the im- 
pression will be the same ; save in this respect, 
that he will recognize in the writers a degree of 
veneration for the person of Jesus that may, or 
may not, appear to him like worship. 

But let us offer a few remarks more in regard 
to the character of one of these writers, — St. Paul. 
Now it is in his writings that Trinitarians think 



J 



56 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



they find the most conclusive proofs of their doc- 
trine. The Gospels, though affording many pas- 
sages of apparent strength, can more readily be 
disposed of, by a fair comparison with other por- 
tions of the text ; but the Epistles of St. Paul are 
their armory and treasure-house. Let us then ex- 
amine the character of St. Paul, and see how far 
he is entitled to the surrender of our reason upon 
this point. 

That he was a man of warm temperament, live- 
ly imagination, and great activity both of mind 
and body, is quite apparent in what he has writ- 
ten, as well as in what is said of him in the book 
of the Acts of the Apostles. His zeal, his elo- 
quence, his learning, his courage, his faith, his 
deep, fervent piety, — all these mark him for a man 
as great as he was good. But he had his faults, 
notwithstanding ; and he is not ashamed to con- 
fess them. He was not always equal. He was 
sometimes overborne by a consciousness of his 
own feebleness, of the unprepossessing style of his 
appearance, by his stammering speech, — and he 
appeared before his audiences " in fear and much 
trembling." He was also at times exceedingly 
timid. He took Timothy, and circumcised him, 
contrary to his own convictions, " for fear of the 



LETTER IV. 



57 



Jews." He was superstitious ; he shaved his head 
and went up to the temple, after he had said re- 
peatedly and expressly, that " Christ was the end 
of the law for righteousness to every one that be- 
lieved," and that the temple services were not 
only obsolete, but nugatory, and therefore virtually 
forbidden the Christian. He preached baptism for 
the dead, which Dr. Ruckerf, an orthodox divine, 
pronounces a " pernicious superstition," which, al- 
though incontestably the doctrine of the St. Paul 
of that age, would not receive the assent of " an 
ideal Paul, indeed, with the cultivation of the nine- 
teenth century." He was, likewise, as we should 
naturally expect in a man of his enthusiasm, given 
occasionally to exaggeration. Take, as an in- 
stance, his declaration that he could wish himself 
" accursed from Christ," for his brethren and kins- 
men according to the flesh. A most extraordinary 
expression, were it even confined to a person mak- 
ing no claims to inspiration. Extravagant is the 
term we should apply to it, whatever might be the 
state of excited feeling under which it was spoken. 
Least of all would we refer it to the dictation of 
the Holy Spirit. 

Regarded as a man of this character, was St. 
Paul a person likely to remain unaffected by the 



58 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



current opinions and belief of his day ? It seems 
to me that he was not. He was bred to the Jew- 
ish law, as that law was then taught, embracing 
many superstitious notions, — many things which, 
though found in the Talmudists, were not strictly 
Scriptural. He was also taught in the learning of 
the Greeks and Romans. He was a Roman citi- 
zen ; and it would be expecting too much from a 
man of his warm temperament and discursive in- 
tellect, to suppose that he had never become im- 
bued with the philosophy, had never been ani- 
mated by the beautiful poetic fictions, or his im- 
agination and feelings never led aw r ay by the con- 
tagious influences of the social and literary tastes 
of that period. The very atmosphere in which he 
moved had been peopled with imaginary deities; 
the rivers, the woods, the groves, the grottos, the 
fountains, the hills, — all had their divinities ; and 
the constellations in the heavens were parcelled 
out among those superior beings who controlled 
the destinies of men and nations. St. Paul was 
not only aware of these facts, but they had formed 
part of that mental nutriment by which his mind 
grew to maturity. And now, in his manhood, — 
though converted to Christianity, — though no 
longer reverencing idle superstitions, — he might 



LETTER IV. 



59 



not have been an entire unbeliever in the exist- 
ence of those fabulous deities. The whole world 
believed in them, — and most of that world wor- 
shipped them. But a man might have been a Chris- 
tian and, at the same time, have entertained no 
more doubt of their reality than Cotton Mather or 
Chief Justice Hale did of the existence of witches 
and the practice of witchcraft. Nor do we any- 
more impugn the sound mind, the logical acute- 
ness, the true piety and religious character of St. 
Paul, in thus speaking of him as a believer in 
these mythological personages. It only showed 
that, upon this subject, at least, his knowledge was 
neither exact nor certain. Indeed, in a superstitious 
age we rarely find men of the loftiest intellects 
entirely free from superstitious ideas. Besides, our 
knowledge is so uncertain in regard to every thing 
that lies beyond the recognition of the senses, 
that what to believe or what to reject, it is im- 
possible for us to determine. Because many men 
"make up their minds" upon these subjects, it 
does not follow that they make them up by any 
given data. They often do so dogmatically and 
by presumption. They know no more than others. 

Now take the passage contained in the fourth, 
fifth, and sixth verses of the eighth chapter of the 



60 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



First Epistle to the Corinthians, and see if you do 
not recognize in St. Paul this belief : — 

" As concerning therefore the eating of those 
things that are offered in sacrifice to idols, we 
know that an idol is nothing in the world, and 
that there is none other God but one. For though 
there be that are called gods, whether in heaven 
or in earth, (as there be gods many and lords 
many,) but to us there is but one God, the Father, 
of whom are all things, and we in him ; and one 
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and 
we by him." 

Now you will observe that he makes a marked 
distinction between an idol, which is but a gra- 
ven image, etdwkov, and a god, 6e6s. He says 
that an idol is nothing; but he does not say the 
same of the gods. Had he stopped at the end of 
the fourth verse, where he says, " that there is 
none other God but one," we could not affirm 
any thing further respecting his belief. But he 
goes on to say, evidently with a view to qualify 
this assertion, as well as to set his reader right in 
regard to minor divinities, — ■ " For though there 
be that are called gods, w T hether in heaven or in 
earth, as there be gods many, and lords many, — 

cocnrep elal Btol ttoXXoI, koL Kvpioi 7roXXcu, — but to US [that 



LETTER IV. 



61 



is, to Christians, however it may be with others] 
there is but one God." Which is saying, in words 
which may be rendered from the sense of the pas- 
sage, — "Although there are in heaven, or in the 
air surrounding the earth, or in deep mysterious 
places about the earth, these divinities which the 
Greeks and Romans worship; for, in fact, these 
gods and lords are substantial living persons ; yet 
to you, Corinthians, having now forsaken the ado- 
ration of these as inferior potentialities, there is 
no longer but one God, greater than them all." 

What I say in relation to this passage is simply 
this, — that it does not impeach the soundness 
of Paul's Christianity ; it only militates against 
the idea of his being infallibly inspired. I feel 
just as much indebted to him for his testimony to 
the truth of Christ's religion, as if these words had 
never been written. Nor am I in any disposition 
to find fault with him for having written them. 
It was but natural that he should do so. 

But I cannot say as much for him, when I find 
him, in Col. ii. 18, inculcating the worshipping of 
angels. To be sure, this must be assigned to his 
mixed education, — Jewish and Gentile, — for he 
found the doctrine and practice in both. Yet we 
know how ingeniously this doctrine was qualified 

6 



62 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



among the Jew? so as to escape the censure of 
the first commandment of the Decalogue, — they 
worshipped angels, but in subordination to God, 
not in place of him, or before him. So the 
Roman Catholics profess to worship the Virgin 
Mary and the saints. But it soon degenerates 
into nothing more or less than the grossest idola- 
try. And so St. Paul himself made a god of Jesus, 
in subordination to the Father; and Christians in 
our day would have us worship him. Not, indeed, 
in St. Paul's conception of him, but as God him- 
self, — thus improving upon the original thought, 
and from a simple polytheism rising to a com- 
plex idea, for the expression of which no word is 
competent. 

But to return to the text referred to, Col. ii. 
18: — "Let no man beguile you of your reward 
in a voluntary humility and worshipping of an- 
gels/' — 6pT](TKe[a tQjv dyyiXav. Which, if there is any 
sense in language, means that he considered the 
worship of angels a practice which a man was 
not lightly to surrender to the reasonings of op- 
ponents, but to adhere to with a becoming humil- 
ity in regard to his own fitness for so august a 
service; not laid upon him, indeed, by divine pre- 
cept, but which he had voluntarily adopted in con- 



LETTER IV. 



63 



sonance with the religious customs of the times. 
I think this is the fair interpretation of the pas- 
sage ; and it receives an indirect accession of credi- 
bility from the fact that, after all, St. Paul's notions 
of the divinity of Christ were probably those of a 
higher angelic nature, which God " made so much 
better than the angels as he hath by inheritance 
obtained a more excellent name than they." For 
the word yevSfievos^ from yivoym^ here rendered made, 
means strictly created; which, indeed, will bear 
rendering made, since made in the connection can 
convey no other idea than that of created. So 
in Col. i. 15, " Who is the image of the invisible 
God, the first-born of every creature," — Krio-tm, — 
any thing that is created. Now, although " made 
so much better than the angels " conveys an idea 
of a very superior intelligence, yet, being neces- 
sarily of an inferior nature to God, he must be 
something of a nature allied to the angelic, dis- 
tinguished by the greater title of Son ; because it 
is not in our power to conceive of such a being, 
and that a created being, who would not so ap- 
pear to our reason. St. Paul, indeed, says that 
he took not upon him the nature of angels, be- 
cause in his incarnation he took upon him our 
nature. But his preexistent state must necessarily 



64 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



have been angelic, predestined from the remotest 
time to this service and manifestation. His being 
"the image of the invisible God," was what had 
been before said of Adam. 

But to determine precisely what the character 
of Christ was, is not necessary to our argument. 
Different minds will form different conceptions of 
it. It is enough for us that he was a created be- 
ing, to withhold us from paying him divine honors. 
And my desire in this place is simply to show 
how St. Paul regarded the worship of the crea- 
ture; and, as an inference from that, that his wor- 
shipping Christ could not be adduced as an argu- 
ment in favor of his being God. As to what he 
says, Heb. i. 6, about God commanding the an- 
gels to worship him, all I desire to say is, that it 
is one of those unfortunate quotations which labor 
under that first of all necessities, the want of an 
author. We have no reason to suppose that God 
ever said any such thing. God never commanded 
the worshipping of a creature. St. Paul may have 
thought so, because he adopted the practice. 

Now I have seen some very ingenious attempts 
made to explain away this " worshipping of an- 
gels " ; and they might obtain some degree of suc- 
cess, were it not known that such was the prac- 



LETTER IV. 



65 



tice of the most orthodox Jews in the days of St. 
Paul. How they reconciled the practice with the 
first commandment in the Decalogue, it is not for 
me to say. It is their business, not mine. 

Clarke, referring in his Commentary to the Tar- 
gum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, says: — "And they 
even allow them [angels] to be worshipped for the 
sake of their creator; though they will not allow 
them to be worshipped for their own sake." Jo- 
sephus also alludes to this practice, in his second 
book on the Wars of the Jews, chap. 8, sec. 7, 
where, relating the rites performed by the initiated 
Essene, he numbers among them the obligation 
not to reveal the names of the angels who were 
the tutelar deities of the sect. So Philo speaking 
of them says, they are " the eyes and ears of the 
great King." In Tobit xii. 15 we find this pas- 
sage : — "I am Raphael, one of the seven holy 
angels, which present the prayers of the saints, 
and which go in and out before the glory of the 
Holy One.' 5 

Doubtless this notion of the mediation of angels 
was derived from the Greek philosophy, and per- 
haps, also, with the notion, the practice of adoration. 

Plato says : Qeos duBpcctnco ov \Liyvvrai, dXka dia daifio- 

viav Tiwa i(TTtv f) SpcXia Kai rj biakeKTos Seols npbs dv6p6)irovs» 
6 * 



66 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



— "God is not approached immediately by man, 
but all the commerce and intercourse between God 
and men is performed by the mediation of de- 
mons," — dia baifiovlcov, — the spirits of deceased men 
or angels. So Hesiod, Plutarch, Apuleius, and 
others. 

But we have something stronger than the utter- 
ance of St. Paul in support of our view of this 
practice. We have facts related by the person 
himself who w T as guilty of the idolatrous act, — if 
such it may be called. That person was St. John, 
the beloved disciple. He relates it of himself, in 
Rev. xix. 10, where he tells us he fell down at 
the feet of the angel to worship him ; and that the 
angel reproved him, and bid him " worship God." 
So, in the twenty-second chapter, v. 8, 9, he reenacts 
the same scene ; and is again reproved and bid to 
" worship God." Surely more conclusive testi- 
mony it would be impossible to present. So might 
we refer to like instances in the Old Testament. 
But that is unnecessary; what we have already 
said is sufficient, I should suppose, to convince 
the most sceptical. 

Christ himself speaks of the angels of those 
" little children " beholding the face of their Fa- 
ther which is in heaven, in a way to show that 



LETTER IV. 



67 



the notion of guardian spirits was current in his 
time. But he in no instance sanctions the worship 
or even invocation of them. But, as we before 
remarked, in substance, Christ alone could be re- 
garded as infallible ; and therefore it is no pre- 
sumption to affirm of the Apostles that they were 
not so. St. Paul doubtless became imbued with 
these notions, as well " at the feet of Gamaliel/ 5 as 
when drinking at the copious fountains of Greek 
and Roman literature and philosophy. To look 
upon him in any other light is not at all neces- 
sary to a just appreciation of the great purpose of 
his mission, or of the doctrine he delivered. 

And why should it be so ? Does inspiration 
imply the total absorption and obliteration of 
the natural character of the subject of it? If it 
does, why do we see such variety of style and 
thought among the sacred penmen ? Surely this 
fact disproves it. Nor is it necessary that they 
should thus become mere automata. It could an- 
swer no wise end. And yet a verbal inspiration 
would imply this. Accepting this, and at the 
same time recognizing the various readings and 
discrepancies found in the Bible, what would be 
the unavoidable inference? That the Bible is not 
true. But we do not so accept it. The Bible 



63 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



comes to man as a revelation from God, in which 
his religious sentiment is addressed, — in which a 
moral law is proposed for the healthy development 
and right guidance of that religious principle which 
lies deep within him, and which is waiting only 
for the means of expression to utter itself in acts 
of devotion and words of adoration. If it fulfil 
this end, it secures all that is required. It is need- 
less to look further ; or to affect to find in pecu- 
liarity of language, or in isolated texts, authority 
for the inculcation of dogmas which answer no end 
but that of enmity and strife. 



LETTER V. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

I propose in this letter to consider two or three 
of those particular texts upon which you build 
your theory of Christ's equality with the Father. 
As I shall in these instances select those which 
you consider the strongest, it will not be necessary 
to advert to any more ; since this would be to 
extend these letters beyond the length prescribed 
to them. Besides, in this discussion I consider 
mere texts as of secondary importance to the es- 
tablishment of a principle. It is a poor way of 
conducting a religious argument to found your 
reasons upon isolated passages, to be found in a 
book of the magnitude of the Bible. It is unfair ; 
because it is only by grasping in your mind, as 
a whole, the great purpose and spirit of the Bible, 
that you can be enabled to judge of its meaning 



70 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



in particular parts of it. You must seek to inter- 
pret it in its larger relations to outward nature ; 
keeping ever in mind, that God is revealed in 
both, and that his character must not be brought 
into conflict with either. So nature, as seen in 
the moral, intellectual, and social dispositions of 
men, is a revelation of God's will concerning them ; 
since in the constitution of the human mind, when 
ennobled by truth and virtue, we may read much 
of the Divine intention. So in the life of Jesus, 
in whom all the moral capabilities of our nature 
were exerted in their harmonious and perfect en- 
tirety, we have an illustration of the God-man, — 
" the express image," soiled and defaced in Adam's 
sin, but now set in a glory " as of the only be- 
gotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 
And so we are all children of the same Father, 
giving forth different rays of that glory from the 
spiritual life that is present in us. Some, indeed, 
living rather in darkness than in light,- — but none 
the less children of hope, — open evidences of God's 1 
wisdom and love. 

A passage very much relied upon by you is the 
following, from Phil, ii., beginning at the sixth 
verse : — " Who, being in the form of God, thought 
it not robbery to be equal with God; but made 



LETTER V. 



71 



himself of no reputation, and took upon him the 
form of a servant, and was made in likeness of 
men ; and, being found in fashion as a man, he 
humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, 
even the death of the cross. Wherefore God 
also hath highly exalted him, and given him a 
name which is above every name ; that at the 
name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things 
in heaven, and things in earth, and things under 
the earth ; and that every tongue should confess 
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
the Father." 

If we are to understand this passage in a Trin- 
itarian sense, it is in direct contradiction to itself. 
If in that sense in which I think the writer con- 
ceived it, — that is, as presenting Jesus Christ to 
his readers as an inferior deity, — then, though 
still incongruous in its parts, it is capable of con- 
veying a complete idea. 

In the first, or Trinitarian sense, the passage 
reads thus : — In the beginning there existed two 
coordinate, coeternal Beings, of the same form 
and same dimensions, — which is virtually defin- 
ing the infinite and illimitable. That one of these, 
esteeming himself to be of the same form, — f^opcp^ 
— thought it not robbery to assume an equality 



J 



72 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



with the other, — which, indeed, it were not neces- 
sary to do if he were that before. But having 
done that, for that reason, — and I can't see how 
the reason applies, — he made himself of no repu- 
tation, and he, the infinite, took upon himself the 
form of a servant, — thus disguised himself, — and 
in consequence of this deception, being mistaken 
for a man by men, they ignorantly put him to 
death for some alleged offence ; so that the inex- 
haustible source of all life — died! Now this is not 
only incredible in itself, but that which is assumed 
as the merit of the actor is his condemnation, — 
thus to humble himself and entrap men into the 
sin of killing him. It could redound neither to his 
glory nor theirs. 

But the contradiction lies in this, that this co- 
ordinate, coeternal, and co-infinite being — who 
in short is God himself — is now highly exalted 
by his equal, and, in consideration of that very 
equivocal conduct of his, given a name, and en- 
titled to receive the homage of all living creatures. 
In this lies the contradiction, that that was given 
him which he possessed in his own right. 

Now let us look at it with what we suppose 
to have been the idea of the Apostle, and see 
whether this incongruity does not give place to 



LETTER V. 



73 



something like method and consistency. Jesus 
being, before his incarnation, existent in a godlike 
form, thought it not therefore robbery to aspire to a 
godlike preeminence above other celestial creatures, 
by the work of redemption he now contemplated 
since the creation and fall of man ; and which he 
foresaw God would so reward. For, says the 

ii Apostle in another place, " for the joy that was 
set before him, he endured the cross," &c. There- 
fore, for this reason, — and here it appears as such, 
— he descended from that height of glory to in- 
struct men by his words and life as the sent of 

' God, and died in consequence of his magnani- 
mous conduct. Wherefore God hath raised him 
to that preeminence which was the object of his 

\ righteous ambition, and honored him with the 
homage of all living creatures ; but " to the glory 
of God the Father" — in subordination to him. 
And this exactly brings out the Jewish and Pla- 

d tonic idea of the worship of angels. 

If you will examine the text, you will see that 

\ there is something wanted between verses 6 and 
7, to connect the sense ; because, even according 

{ to the Trinitarian notion, his being equal with 

1 God could be no reason in itself for what he sub- 
sequently does ; nor for his not spontaneously ap- 

7 



74 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



propriating to himself all that which he receives 
as an inferior. 

The same remarks- will apply to Hebrews i. 8, 
" But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, 
is for ever and ever," &c. To understand it in 
any other sense is to involve a contradiction,- — the 
sense, I mean, of the Pauline conception of Christ 
as a god, or godlike. Take the eighth and ninth 
verses together, and this will be apparent at once : 
— "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, 
is for ever and ever ; a sceptre of righteousness 
is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved 
righteousness and hated iniquity ; therefore God, 
even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of 

gladness above thy fellows" TTCLpa TOVS fX€TO)(OVS GOV. 

Nothing, it would seem, could be plainer than this. 
Any other rendering than that which the Apostle 
gives in his own words, as explanatory of his own 
idea, would but make nonsense of the whole pas- 
sage. 

As to the perpetuity of this kingdom, we have 
but to refer to what is said by the same writer in 
in 1 Cor. 15 : " Then cometh the end when he 
[Christ] shall have delivered up the kingdom to 
God, even the Father." And further on : « And 
when all things shall be subdued unto him, then 



LETTER V. 



75 



shall the Son also himself be subject unto him 
that put all things under him, that God may be 
all in all." And this will enable us to understand 
what is meant by " for ever and ever." Which, 
indeed, may be to our view a lapse of time so 
long as to seem to human estimation " for ever 
and ever." So that the Godship of Christ is not 
only a subordinate, but a temporary honor; and 
his kingdom that which shall end with the " wreck 
of matter and the crash of worlds," and the sur- 
cease of the human family. 

It is certainly a remarkable fact, if we adopt 
the Trinitarian theory, that Christ never spoke of 
himself as an object of worship ; never told his 
disciples to apply directly to him after his ascen- 
sion as the dispenser of spiritual blessings ; never 
put himself forth as the sovereign arbiter of the 
universe. When applied to for a form of prayer 
to direct their devotions, he referred them to " Our 
Father which art in heaven " ; and made no allu- 
sion whatever to the Son. It is fair to presume 
that, in a matter of so much importance, he would 
not have omitted the two other persons of the 
Trinity. Had this been, what men now make it, 
a cardinal doctrine, the omission might be charged 
as a dangerous error. 



76 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



He does indeed say to his disciples, John xiv. 
13, " Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that 
will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the 
Son." And again, xv. 16, " Whatsoever ye shall 
ask of the Father in my name, he may give it 
you." So in xvi. 23, " And in that day " — that 
is, after his ascension — u ye shall ask me nothing. 
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall 
ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." 
All of which, taken together, amounts to this, — 
that God was to be approached in the name of 
Christ, and that there was a power, a charm, a 
virtue in his name, which, in the mouth of the true 
believer, brought a ready response to the applica- 
tion. So when Peter cured the lame man lying 
at the beautiful gate of the Temple, he said to 
him, " In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, 
rise up and walk." 

The first instance in which he says, K Whatso- 
ever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that 
the Father may be glorified in the Son," refers 
to his present acts while upon earth ; the second 
and third evidently point to the time when he 
should no longer be with them, but had ascended 
to the Father. We must admit this distinction, 
or the passages will contradict themselves, and 



LETTER V. 



77 



leave us in doubt with regard to his meaning al- 
together. Hence, while we are encouraged to offer 
prayer in the name of Jesus, we find no authority 
for praying directly to him, in any thing he is re- 
ported to have said to his disciples. 

Yet there is a passage in the chapter first quoted 
from, the fourteenth, which, literally interpreted, 
forms the basis of a very strong argument on the 
Trinitarian side. It would be unfair to pass it 
by. Let us then attentively consider it, as well by 
itself as in its connection with other passages. 

" If ye had known me, ye should have known 
my father also : and from henceforth ye know him, 
and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, 
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus 
saith unto him, Have I been so long time with 
you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? 
He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and 
how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?*' 

Before remarking upon these words, we will 
quote some others from the same Gospel, and then 
endeavor to exhibit them in the light of their mu- 
tual relation. St. John says (i. 18) : " No man 
hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten 
Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he 
hath declared him," — Uelvos l&y^o-aTo, — that is, 
7* 



78 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



made known, spoken of intelligibly ; not exhibited 
in an ocular manner, as the first quotation above 
would seem to imply. So in chap. vi. 46, Jesus 
says, " Not that any man hath seen the Father, 
save he which is of God; he hath seen the Fa- 
ther." He had said in St. Matthew, " The pure 
in heart shall see God." And these declarations 
taken together go to show that the seeing here 
spoken of is used in a strictly spiritual and met- 
aphorical sense. But to continue : — 

Jesus says : " And the word which ye hear is 
not mine, but the Father's, which sent me " ; this 
is in chap. xiv. 24. At verse 28 he says, " For my 
Father is greater than I." In chap. x. 36 he 
speaks of himself as the Son, " whom the Father 
hath sanctified, and sent into the world." Chap, 
x. 19, " The Son can do nothing of himself." 
Chap. viii. 28, " When ye have lifted up the Son 
of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and 
that I do nothing of myself : but as my Father 
hath taught me, I speak these things." Again, 
chap. xiv. 12, " He that believeth on me, the 
works that I do shall he do also ; and greater 
works than these shall he do, because I go unto the 
Father." We need not extend these quotations, 
and would refer in conclusion to those occasions 



LETTER V. 



79 



upon which Jesus prayed to the Father in words 
indicative at once of his own inferiority and help- 
less dependence. 

Now, to preserve any thing like a consistent 
sense in these passages, we must use them in 
such a way that they shall best explain each other ; 
that the obscurer may receive the assistance of 
the clearer, and that which is nearest in accord- 
ance with reason be accepted as true. Now Jesus 
could not, after having declared to the woman of 
Samaria that God is a spirit, and that they that 
worship him must worship in spirit, turn round to 
his disciples and preach anthropomorphism, — not 
merely making man God, but God a man. Nor 
could he affirm that God was greater than he, if 
he meant that he was personally God. Nor could 
he claim to be this personal God, and yet attrib- 
ute the words he spake and the works he wrought 
to the Father ; and add to this the declaration, 
that he " could do nothing of himself." The ar- 
rogance of his declarations would else be equalled 
only by the imbecility of his actions ; and even 
these declarations themselves would not stand the 
test of a rational criticism. 

No : we must take into consideration the unde- 
niable fact, that the writer of this Gospel was very 



80 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



much of a mystic, and that in him the spirit of 
exaggeration was large. He says, at the close 
of his narrative, — " And there are also many 
other things which Jesus did, the which, if they 
should be written every one, I suppose that even 
the world itself could not contain the books that 
should be written." So he delights in making 
Jesus say, " My flesh is meat indeed, and my 
blood is drink indeed " ; and " Whoso eateth my 
flesh and drinketh my blood," &c. ; which have 
been, and still are, the sources of endless disputes, 
superstitious doctrines, and uncharitable feelings, 
in the Church. Hence, if we accept the words 
first quoted, — " He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father," — as a literal report of the conversa- 
tion of Jesus, we should be doing that man of 
humble manners, meek and lowly at heart, a great 
wrong, to suppose that he meant to draw to him- 
self the worship and adoration that were due to 
the Father alone. We must regard the passage 
as presenting us with something like a myth, in 
which the lower sense is made to assume the 
character of the higher ; as when we speak of na- 
ture doing that which God alone can do, and 
thus, by a change of terms, put nature in the place 
of God. So when Jesus raises the dead,' or per- 



LETTER V. 



81 



forms any other miracle, we ascribe the power to 
him ; we say, Jesus did it, whereas God does 
these things by and through Jesus, as he himself 
assures us : — " The Father that dwelleth in me, 
he doeth the works." 

So also, when he speaks of that spiritual unity 
which exists between the Father and himself, — 
when he says, " I and the Father are one," and 
" I am in the Father and the Father in me," — he 
meant nothing more than that universal relation- 
ship common in all men to God, — the " Father of 
spirits," the " God of the spirits of all flesh " ; 
and which is affirmed in many parts of Scripture. 
We know this, because he plainly speaks of it in 
this way, as when he prays that the disciples 
" may all be one ; as thou Father, art in me, and 
I in thee, that they also may be one in us." 
And again, " I in them, and thou in me, that 
they may be made perfect in one." Hence, you 
may perceive that Jesus puts forth no claim to 
that painful preeminence you would ascribe to 
him. He does not assume to be God, or equal 
with God ; but one high in favor as his com- 
missioned servant, doing his work and obeying 
his will, and looking to him for his reward. 

There is one more argument to which I must 



82 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



call your attention before I close this letter. It is 
founded upon the first fourteen verses in the first 
chapter of the Gospel by St. John. In this, the 
Logos or Word is represented as not only in the 
beginning with God, but as God, — !jv Geo* ; that 
it was made flesh, — kcu 6 Xoyos eyeWo o-dpg ; that 
by it ail things were made, — irdvra JyeWo di alrov. 

Now if the Apostle means us to understand by 
the Word or Logos being made flesh, that God, 
the incomprehensible, the infinite and glorious 
Jehovah, was made flesh, — that he reduced his 
all-pervading spiritual essence into gross matter,— 
shrouded his ineffable brightness in this corporeal 
substance of our aching bodies, — trod the earth 
in the province of Judea, — there hungered and 
wept, — prayed to himself, — was forsaken at mo- 
ments by himself, — and perished at last, like a 
poor, helpless criminal, upon the cross ; — I say, if 
St. John means this, as you Trinitarians affirm, 
then, upon the responsibility of my own judg- 
ment, and in the light of my own reason, and by 
virtue of that reverence for God which is in me, 
I withdraw my credence entirely and unqualifiedly 
from this part of the narrative. 

But I do not consent so to receive it. Like 
St. Paul, St. John had in view the preexistent 



LETTER V. 



83 



glory of Christ, as the first-born of every crea- 
ture ; or the Logos or reason by which God had 
created the world. This Logos or Word, the Alex- 
andrine Jews, who were extensively given to the 
study of the Platonic philosophy, adopted as a 
personality. Hence, as I conceive to have been 
the case, the Chaldee and Jerusalem paraphrasts, 
who were a very fanciful race of men, following 
more readily the recreations of the imagination 
than the sober labors of the logical faculty, 
searched the Scriptures with a view to seize upon 
every expression in which they found the phrase 
" the word of the Lord," — debar yehovah, — and 
to render it as a personality. Thus, the passage, 
" And God created man," &c, the Jerusalem Targum 
writes, " The word of Jehovah created man," &c. 
So in Gen. xxviii. 20, 21, where Jacob says, " If 
God will be with me," &c, "then shall the Lord 
be my God " ; Onkelos paraphrases it, " If the 
word [logos] of Jehovah will be my help," &c, 
"then the ivord of Jehovah shall be my GodP 
So in Gen. iii. 8, for the voice of the Lord God, 
— Jehovah Aleim, — we have "the voice of the 
word of Jehovah." 

In the Apocrypha, Wisdom ix. 1, " O God 
of my fathers and Lord of mercy, who hast made 



84 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



all things with thy word," — eV \6yoi <tov. In xviii. 
15, " Thine Almighty Word — Aoros — leaped down 
from heaven," &c. 

Now, to say that there is any real foundation 
for this fanciful exposition of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, is to say a great deal more than, as 
it appears to me, we can make them responsible 
for. But these were the notions in which the 
Apostles, as Jews, were bred; and these were no- 
tions that adhered to them to the last. Jesus, in 
their view of him, was this Word or Logos. 

But to find a precedent for St. John's use of 
that term^ in the sense he here uses it, we have 
b.ut to refer to the writings of Philo Judaeus, a 
learned Jew, who flourished in the first century, 
and whose works must have been known to the 
writer of this Gospel. For Philo, who was born 
at Alexandria, was of the sacerdotal order, and 
the glory and light of that age. He wrote upon 
the creation, sacred history, and the Jewish polity ; 
and was received at Rome with singular honors 
in the reign of Claudius. This was in the year 
40, full fifty years before St. John penned his nar- 
rative. It would be to accuse the latter of a cen- 
surable degree of ignorance, to suppose he knew 
nothing of Philo ; for the Jews of that day were 



LETTER V. 



85 



very curious in matters of speculative interest. 
And this was their popular literature, as much so 
as the classical literature of the English language 
is ours. 

In some selections made from Philo's works, I 
find these expressions corresponding to those of 
the Apostle. The latter tells us that the " "Word 

Was God." Philo Speaks of it as Aoyop g>s avrbv (Oebp) 

Karavovo-i, — being the same as God. So, in several 
places, he calls it, — the second divinity, devrepos 
Betbs Aoyos ; the image of God, elmp rov Qeov ; by 

Whom the world was Created, tov Belov Aoyop rbv ravra 
diaKoo-fiTjo-avTa ; the Substitute of God, vTrapxos rov Qeov, 

&c, &c. With many more like expressions, which 
it is not necessary to transcribe, but which were 
applied by him to this imaginary Word or Logos. 
I say imaginary, because Philo lived and died a 
Jew, and therefore could not have had Christ in 
his mind. 

Some writers, in their anxiety to defend the doc- 
trine of a verbal or plenary inspiration, are so bold 
as to deny that St. John ever became acquainted 
with these writings of Philo ; or indeed that he had 
ever read a word of the Jewish paraphrasts. This 
is saying a great deal. On a matter about which 
we know nothing certain, it is best not to be posi- 

8 



86 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



tive. We see the Apostle uttering the language 
and giving expression to the ideas of his learned 
countrymen. How did he obtain them ? Is it in 
accordance with the ordinary methods of Divine 
Providence to suppose that he was directly in- 
spired to write that which he had but to open his 
eyes and his ears to see and to hear? Moses 
was read in the synagogues every Sabbath day; 
and upon such occasions it is not unreasonable 
to suppose that such comments were made by 
those who were appointed to speak, as would 
give form to these conceptions of the word. Did 
St. John never attend a synagogue on the Sab- 
bath day? Besides, here were some fifty years 
passed by St. John — not to speak of St. Paul — in 
preaching the Gospel, — in intercourse with the 
learned as well as with the unlearned world, — 
before he penned his Gospel. How could he argue 
against opinions about which he was ignorant ? 

It seems to me much more probable, that both 
of the Apostles applied these ideas as prophetic 
of Christ, and looked upon him as their living 
illustration. This was very natural. And they 
were not above availing themselves of the wisdom 
of contemporary authorities. They had a right to 
use these authorities. That they should sometimes 



LETTER V. 



87 



mislead them is not to be wondered at. We ac- 
cord to them a character for sincerity and veracity. 
But we doubt that they were kept from error. "We 
doubt it very much in regard to the character of 
Christ, or at least in regard to what were his 
higher and more essential relations to the Father. 
On this subject Christ himself was often obscure ; 
and it may not have been his intention that their 
curiosity should be gratified on so mystical and 
inscrutable a matter. But they would speculate 
upon it, and this is the result. 



i 



LETTER VI. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

For a succinct and pretty fair account of the 
origin of the dogma of the Trinity as embodied 
in the Nicene Creed, I must refer you to Mosheim. 
That, long before the rise of the Arian controver- 
sy, the distinct and appreciable character of Jesus 
Christ in his relation to the Father had often been 
the subject of investigation and dispute, you may 
very easily learn from that writer on ecclesiastical 
history. And further, that although Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit had been treated of as three sep- 
arate personalities, they had not yet been fused 
into one incomprehensible whole, — and Christ rec- 
ognized as Qebv €K 6eoi>) (pecs eic (ficoTos, Bebv aXvSivbv eic 
6eov akrjOLvov. 

We know what was the immediate cause of the 
adoption of this word, Trinity; but to ascertain what 



LETTER VI. 



89 



it was that fitted the minds of theologians to receive 
it and put it forth as an article of faith, would carry 
us far beyond the bounds prescribed to this corre- 
spondence. The Trinitarian idea had long been 
in the world, and reduced to a doctrine by Per- 
sians, Hindoos, and Chinese ; and lay ready for 
definite expression in Plato. Philo, called the Jew- 
ish Plato, in his interpretation of the Logos, had 
unconsciously contributed his quota of influence 
toward such a consummation. So that it would 
be risking but little, and no scandal, to affirm, 
that it was of heathen rather than of Christian 
origin. The mind of that age, trained to subtile 
disquisition and indulgent of the wildest specula- 
tions, losing itself in visionary impracticabilities and 
beyond conception credulous, offered a fertile soil 
for its reception and growth. The compact eccle- 
siastical organization, with its implacable conser- 
vatism, that succeeded and laid claim to a perpetual 
sovereignty over thought and conscience, stamped 
it with its indelible imprint of authority. That 
was enough. It secured its triumph in every con- 
test with reason, and bore down opposition with 
sword and crosier, fagot, flame, and anathema. 
And so we have received it, and so maintain it. 
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " 

8* 



90 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



Still, there have been in every age men of suffi- 
cient independence to contest it, and to defy au- 
thority in the very seat of its power. So there 
ever will be men of the same cast of character to 
decry it in all time to come, and to die at the stake 
of public opinion, rather than raise an altar to this 
" Unknown God." For I am bold enough to say 
it, since the father of Abraham made his orison 
to the sun in Ur of the Chaldees, till people in 
the nineteenth century made obeisance to Bam- 
bino in modern pagan Rome, there has been no 
more unscriptural, unreasonable, incomprehensible 
superstition than this of the Trinity. The Catho- 
lic bows down to a piece of bread, and calls it his 
God; or he worships a painted figure of the Vir- 
gin, or an old rag, or a piece of wood, or an old 
bone, and he comprehends, as far as such non- 
sense is comprehensible, what he is about : but the 
Trinitarian "worships he knows not what." First 
it is the Father, then the Son, then the Holy 
Ghost, — then all three in one, — then one for the 
sake of the other, — then two ; — then they are 
three Gods, because they are three personalities ; 
but, frightened by this idea, he groups them be- 
fore his mental vision in a kind of congeries which 
is without division or divisibility; — lost again, he 



LETTER VI. 



91 



puts one forth as an influence, another as a sac- 
rifice ; — then, although they are but one God, one 
appeases the other, solicits, prays to him. Thus 
there is a continual conflict of ideas; and, from 
want of a clear conception of the subject, a dis- 
traction which is equivalent to doubt. To affirm 
in this case may be easy, but to believe is impos- 
sible. For to attempt to worship three persons as 
one God, is to deny the attribute of Deity to each 
in succession. Or to worship each person sepa- 
rately as God, is to 'create three Gods, — for three 
divine persons equal to each other cannot be other 
than three Gods. It is indeed often said, in de- 
fence of this practice, that the unity of the Father 
is, in itself, as incomprehensible as the Trinity. 
But this is affirming an untruth. God is incom- 
prehensible because of his infinitude ; but the Trin- 
ity is incomprehensible because of its absurdity. 
We can understand how there may be one infi- 
nite ; but not, how there may be three. Is it any 
reason, because we cannot grasp the conception 
of one infinite being, that we should be called 
upon to acknowledge three? The unity of God 
is an idea which fills the mind with the most ex- 
alted, pure, and devout emotions; while this poly- 
theism breaks up the supreme beauty, and distracts 



92 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



the harmony, that else take possession of and en- 
noble the soul. 

Among the influences which tended to conserve 
this dogma of a Trinity, we may safely reckon, I 
think, those flowing from the narrow cosmologi- 
cal notions of that period. The Copernican theory 
of the earth's rotation on its axis, and its small- 
ness of size when compared with the other plan- 
etary bodies, were then unknown. u The whole 
world." as it was then called, did not extend much 
beyond the limits of the Roman empire. St. John 
in the apocalyptic vision saw the stars of heaven 
fall upon the earth, which, as a vision, might pass 
for such, but could not be regarded as a fact either 
of the past or the future. The earth was looked 
upon as the centre of the universe, and all the 
"host of heaven" as inferior in size and subser- 
vient in purpose. With this earth alone were 
God and angelic beings incessantly engrossed and 
occupied. Its production had signalized the grand- 
est exhibition of the Creator's powers ; from the 
labor of which, at the end of six days, he sunk 
exhausted into the refreshing repose of the Sab- 
bath ; and now its government taxed all the re- 
sources of his great mind, and vexed his benevo- 
lent heart. Moreover, his empire was divided. 



LETTER VI. 



93 



Satan was a successful rival power. He had se- 
duced man from his allegiance, and bid fair to 
perfect the conquest of the world. Therefore it 
was not doing very great violence to the idea of 
God's dignity, to suppose that he might descend 
upon the earth, in the person of Jesus, to contest 
in open combat this supremacy of Satan, and to 
redeem men from destruction. It was indeed, even 
then, a notion which a philosopher might ques- 
tion ; but it had its examples in the gods and 
goddesses of the heathen mythology. It was adapt- 
ed to the common mind. 

But now, in this age of philosophical experiment 
and enlarged range of thought, such notions are 
too contracted for the mind to move in. We have 
found out that any thing which is philosophically 
false cannot be theologically true. And upon the 
basis of this philosophy, and other concurrent tes- 
timonies of science and sound logic, we rise to 
higher, nobler conceptions of the Universal Father. 
"We see his works spread out above, around, below, 
to an extent we call infinite ; — a word which ex- 
presses more than thought can grasp. The worlds, 
compared to any one of which ours is but an in- 
considerable body, and which have been called into 
being by Him, are without number. The "plan- 



94 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



ets, suns, and adamantine spheres that move un* 
shaken through the mighty void," all proclaim his 
greatness and repress our self-sufficiency, — even 
throw contempt upon our littleness. 

And what is quite remarkable, as regards the 
moral influence of these facts upon our minds, is 
this, — that, while these visible works of Deity thus 
exalt our conceptions of his greatness, we turn to 
the Bible alone for fit expressions in which to em- 
body them ; and there alone we find him described 
in that glowing, energetic, and sublime language, 
as the Infinite, the Eternal, the Father of spirits, 
which appears like a fitting homage to his inap- 
preciable greatness. "We find, also, those great re- 
ligious and moral truths predicated of him, which 
hold a living correspondence with our nature. We 
find the laws which he has given for the guidance 
of his creatures in the way of duty and happiness 
adapted in all things to their wants and their as- 
pirations. 

But we find nothing from which to infer this 
doctrine of his degradation, — his uncalled for sub- 
jection to the caprice and abuse of his creatures, 
— which is predicated of him by Trinitarians. "We 
find nothing to call for or to justify it. Neither 
do we see any thing in the person or character of 



LETTER VI. 



95 



Jesus, — much as we see in him to love and ad- 
mire, — that can raise him in our eyes to an equal- 
ity with this august and almighty Father. Far, 
very far, below this great ideal must he sink on a 
review of his life and labors, — his humility, his 
patience, his sorrows, his sufferings, and his death. 

And permit me now to invite your attention to 
a few words upon the life of Jesus, in illustration 
of this idea. Its exhibition in this truthful and 
candid way will tend, better than any extended 
argument, to prove to you the infinite dispropor- 
tion that exists between your tripartite theory and 
the facts of his history. 

The birth of Jesus, we are told, was heralded by 
a choir of angels, who announced it as an event 
that gave glory to God in the highest, was the 
harbinger of peace on earth, and the pledge of 
good-will toward men. And this I can view as 
a fitting tribute to the greatness of him who was 
to speak as never man spake before ; and the pur- 
pose of whose coming embraced a larger amount 
of good, and shed a brighter lustre upon our hu- 
manity, than the birth of any sage, hero, or poten- 
tate that ever lived. 

But he was born into this world as we all are, 
a helpless, complaining child ; and although the 



96 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



fond mother cherished in her memory the lofty 
presages thus given of his future greatness, it is 
not apparent that she rightly understood in what 
direction that greatness w T as to unfold itself; wheth- 
er as a hero, a prophet, or a king. As a Jew, she 
naturally looked to a temporal deliverance for her 
nation from the yoke of Roman bondage, and 
may have seen in her first-born son the mighty 
conqueror who was to achieve it. Her conduct 
favors this supposition. Still, it is a matter of lit- 
tle importance, and we pass it by. 

From the time of his birth and his return from 
Egypt, we hear nothing of Jesus until about his 
twelfth year ; and we may therefore infer that in 
this interval there was nothing said or done by 
him worthy of record. St. Luke says, " And the 
child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with 
wisdom ; and the grace of God was upon him." 

When he was twelve years of age, we are in- 
formed that his parents took him with them up to 
Jerusalem, whither they went " after the custom 
of the feast." On their return, they missed him ; 
and, going back to seek him, found him "in the 
temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both 
hearing them and asking them questions. And all 
that heard him were astonished at his understand- 



LETTER VI. 



97 



ing and answers." Returning to Nazareth with 
his parents, the writer leaves him there for the 
present, with this remark : " And Jesus increased 
in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and 
man." 

How far Jesus, according to this relation, may- 
have exceeded in his questions and answers the 
precocious wisdom of remarkable children of his 
years, we have no means of ascertaining. But 
we have this evidence of his subjection to the 
common laws of our nature, which no interior di- 
vinity, it seems, could exceed, that he increased 
in wisdom and stature. He did not come at once 
into full possession of either, as we might suppose 
a divinity to do. There was a point with him, as 
with us, of absolute ignorance, from which that 
wisdom was developed and grew. " He learned 
obedience," &c, says St. Paul; which implies ac- 
quisition of knowledge by means of a practical and 
contemplative experience. He may have been, and 
doubtless was, an extraordinary child. And this 
is all that we are authorized to make of this pas- 
sage. But it falls far short of what we might ra- 
tionally expect from the second person in the " Holy 
Trinity." 

It is worthy of notice as a most remarkable fact, 

9 



98 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



when we take into account the extravagant claims 
put forth by the Orthodox^ that from this period 
we hear no more of Jesus — no, not a syllable — 
for the space of full eighteen years. How 7 were 
these long^ years occupied? From what we gather 
from the remarks of his contemporaries reported by 
the Evangelists, we must infer that they were spent 
in laboring at the trade of a carpenter with his 
father, Joseph. For it does not appear that a spirit 
of curiosity or adventure had ever led him to quit 
the paternal roof. Think, then, my friend, of the 
second person in the eternal Godhead toiling for 
eighteen years in the workshop of a carpenter; go- 
ing out and coming in, in the humble attire of an 
artisan ; sitting down to their repasts, and min- 
gling in the sports and disputes of his ruder breth- 
ren! Think of this, and think it possible, if you 
can, that this is the Deity you worship! Does it 
not look much more like — though not half so 
heroic — Jupiter wearing the habiliments of Am- 
phitryon, or Hercules plying the distaff of Om- 
phale ? Remember, it was an age in which these 
fables were regarded as sacred truths. 

That this portion of the life of Jesus was not 
distinguished by any thing to break in upon and 
disturb the dull routine of ordinary occupations 



LETTER VI. 



99 



and pleasures, common to the station of his par- 
ents, is sufficiently proved by what the Apostle 
John says of him after he had entered upon his 
ministry, that " neither did his brethren believe on 
him." Surely, if they who had been brought up 
with him, had associated with him from day to 
day, and had been necessarily observant of his 
speech and actions, — if they saw in him no indi- 
cations of his divine character, — they who as Jews 
would have been the first to hail with joyful and 
becoming pride the faintest promise of his pro- 
phetic power, — surely, I say, if they could report 
nothing of this kind to fix their faith in him now, 
we are authorized to conclude that nothing had 
been done or said by him to arrest their attention, 
or impress itself upon their memories as worthy 
of record. 

But I do not intend to say that this apparent 
hiatus in the life of Jesus was without its inward 
experiences, — was unmarked by moments of great 
mental and moral illumination, — possibly by con- 
flicts and triumphs to which none were witnesses 
but the eye of God. This, I think, must have been 
so; for none ever rose to eminence or usefulness 
from the easy and spontaneous growth of their fac- 
ulties. It has always been, and ever will be, that 



100 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



the excellence or greatness they displayed was the 
product of long years of unobserved and silent 
training, in labor, in sorrow, in frequent failure and 
ever-renewed effort. Doubtless it was so with Je- 
sus. Going on in his calm, modest, and patient 
way, a grave, thoughtful child, he " increased in 
favor with God and man " ; but won higher and 
more gratifying applauses from the still, small voice 
of his own conscience. In the solitude of his own 
heart he communed with angels ; for they ever 
hovered near him. And times there must have 
been, when there came to him from that upper 
world streams of celestial light, revealing glimpses 
of his future glory. Times there must have been, 
when his sight, purified by divine influences from 
the grossness of the flesh that darkened it, glanced 
backward into the illimitable past, and his soul 
recognized its birthplace in the bosom of the Al- 
mighty ; when the scenes of its preexistence dawned 
upon it in their ravishing beauty, and he felt him- 
self transfigured into what he was ere the patri- 
arch rejoiced in the vision of his advent. For he 
who was the " first-born of every creature," — the 
" Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," — 
may have been one of those " sons of God " who 
shouted for joy on the morning of the creation, 



LETTER VI. 



101 



amid the harmony of angel songs ; now sent into 
this world, fallen from its pristine grandeur and 
beauty, to redeem it by his " most precious blood," 
— a son of God among the sons of men, — " the 
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 
Yet these recollections of the past, often lost in 
the painful experience of the present, but occasion- 
ally broke forth to cheer and guide him, as the 
lightning glances upon the midnight path of the 
traveller ; and thus lured him to his tragic end. 

I say, this may have been the case. It is even 
more than probable as the interpretation of the 
mystery of his being, drawn from what he said 
and did. This at least has been conjectured by 
minds blest by a divine insight into their own 
natures, — that every human soul has had its un- 
remembered preexistent state. What wonders of 
intuitive wisdom, of prophetic knowledge, of ubiq- 
uitive vision, have been displayed by some whose 
delicate organization nature seemed to have tuned 
to finer issues than the mass of mankind! And 
how large has been the faith of these in truths too 
celestial and sublime for our gross apprehension. 

But, be this as it may, there can scarcely be a 
doubt, that the great work to which Jesus was 
called gradually unfolded itself to his mind as he 
9 * 



102 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



" increased in wisdom and stature " ; that it often 
occupied his thoughts during those eighteen years 
of pregnant silence ; that when " he began to be 
about thirty years of age," it opened the way plain 
before him ; that he was led, sometimes joyfully, 
sometimes reluctantly, but ever fearfully, toward its 
consummation. 

Let us now follow him to the banks of the river 
Jordan, where John announced him to the eager 
multitude as the expected Deliverer. Thence, we 
are informed by three of the Evangelists, he was 
led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted 
of the Devil. That he was so tempted ; but, being 
sustained of God, came out of the trial as pure 
as he went into it. And here we must pause to 
contemplate this remarkable fact in his history. 

Now the creed of your Church affirms, that Jesus 
is " God of God, Light of Light, very God of very 
God, begotten, not made, being of one substance 
with the Father," &c. Pretty strong language, and 
sufficiently clear. Jesus, you say, is God in the 
highest, most extensive and absolute sense. Yet 
he was tempted by the Devil. So St. Paul affirms 
that " he was in all points tempted like as we are," 
&c. "What does another inspired writer say? Sim- 
ply this, that " God cannot be tempted with evil, 



LETTER VI. 



103 



neither tempteth he any man." Now, I don't say- 
that these inspired writers contradict each other; 
they only contradict the Church; for although St. 
Paul did appear to reverence Jesus as a god, he 
did not regard him as the Almighty. 

I am not going to argue this point; for it is not 
worthy an argument. St. James has already affixed 
to it the seal of his denial. I will leave it with St. 
James, only adding this remark, — that I cannot 
bring myself to believe that Satan could ever have 
been guilty of so foolish a thing, as to show the 
Creator of the world " all the kingdoms of the 
world and the glory of them," to induce him to 
worship him, — him, the Devil. No; he never did 
any thing so silly as this. Nor is it credible that 
the Creator could have been tempted by the offer 
of that which was already his own. But that Je- 
sus, the poor son of Mary, in a moment of despond- 
ency and hunger, might have been so tempted, is 
not so improbable, — may be considered worthy of 
belief. 

That this trial of the faith and constancy of 
Jesus was a fit preparation for the work that lay 
before him, seems quite in keeping with his char- 
acter; for there can be no doubt that, hitherto, that 
character had not been sufficiently formed and 



104 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



strengthened to encounter the trials that awaited 
him. And even now he was not at all times 
equal. His inspiration was variable ; his lan- 
guage sometimes denoting great distrust of him- 
self, — great humility, — and then glowing with a 
confidence that assumed more than mortal power 
and wisdom, — challenging the admiration of his 
friends, and provoking the malice of his enemies. 
It is only in a moral aspect that this character 
preserves to our view of it its beautiful consistency 
and striking heroism. And yet would this be sadly 
broken and disfigured if we admitted much to be 
true that the Evangelists said of him. But this 
we cannot do. Comparing him with them, we 
see by their own showing how immeasurably he 
was their superior. In candor, discretion, goodness, 
gentleness, forbearance, patience, wisdom, he was 
so much above as to be even misunderstood by 
them. Their slow, dull, and clouded intellects nev- 
er opened to the full perception of his greatness. 
Hence, judged by the lowest rules of criticism, we 
must concede to him more than they claim, and 
much of what they claim withhold. We cannot 
give Jesus that place in our dutiful affections which 
he merits, unless we do this. We therefore do it 
gladly. 



LETTER VI. 



105 



But that his tender nature sometimes shrunk back 
in terror from the cruel fate that awaited him ; that 
he was keenly alive to physical suffering; that he 
sometimes gave way to a trembling fear, and would 
fain escape from the phantom that hovered in his 
path, — seems to be made apparent in various pas- 
sages in his life. Hear him exclaiming, in tones 
of distressful apprehension, " But I have a baptism 
to be baptized with, and how am I straitened 
till it be accomplished! " See him weeping at the 
grave of Lazarus, as the scene brings up before 
him the vision of his own sepulchre. Hear him 
in the garden : " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, 
even unto death ! " And in that dreadful struggle 
with his destiny, while he sweat as it were great 
drops of blood, putting up that moving expostula- 
tion, " My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass 
from me!" Nay, repeating it three several times; 
but nobly adding, as if exhausted by the conflict 
that raged in his soul, " Not my will, but thine, be 
done." Again, see him sinking helplessly under 
the weight of the cross. See him raised to that 
mournful height on Calvary ; and as the darkness 
of death is gathering before his eyes, and the 
divine light seems to be extinguished in his soul, 
hear him utter that piercing cry, that shook the 



106 HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

earth and rent the veil of the temple : " My God, 
my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" 

O, my friend, while we can shed our tears upon 
the sacred page that sets before us this sad spec- 
tacle ; while we weep at the sight of this august 
sufferer ; while our hearts are smitten by those ter- 
rible words falling from the lips of the friend of 
sinners, — let us not commit the gross error of ador- 
ing him as God. Let us not suppose that it is 
the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth who is 
hanging there in agony and blood ! O, no ! this 
were not the piety worthy an intelligent mind. 

Think not, that, while I am speaking thus stern- 
ly, I am forgetful of what is due to the heroism, 
the purity, the goodness, the .great soul of Jesus. 
No; far from it. Have I not seen him on his way 
to the place of crucifixion, saying, as if forgetful 
of his own pains, to the weeping women who fol- 
lowed him, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for ? 
me, but weep for yourselves and your children " ? . 
Have I not marked his solicitude for the care of j j 
his mother, even while the nails were tearing his » , 
quivering flesh ? Have I not seen him, in the ( 
midst of his torments, turning to the dying male- j 
factor to offer him the consolations of hope ? Sure- g . 
ly I have. And never, for a moment, could I ) ( 



LETTER VI. 



107 



think of withholding from him the grateful praise 
due to his magnanimity. That, indeed, were to 
accuse myself of more than insensibility. 

And remembering how his heart overflowed with 
kindness to all around him ; how he was touched 
with compassion at the sight of suffering in others; 
how all his miracles were but the expression of his 
ready sympathy ; how he consoled the mourner, 
and fed the hungry ; how he entered into the hum- 
ble friendships of Lazarus and his sisters ; how he 
raised the lowly and reassured the penitent out- 
cast ; — remembering all this, how is it possible that 
I should not love the Saviour ; or marvel at his 
simple followers making a god of him ; or even 
at the strong-minded yet enthusiastic St. Paul, in 
his moments of exaltation, ascribing to him the 
form and glorious attributes of Deity ? 

But I do wonder — and therein wonder at my- 
self — that men should do so in this enlightened 
age ; that, with the life of Jesus before them, ly- 
ing in the calm, clear region of a rational faith, 
with all its contemporary lights around it, they 
should seek to find in him the one and indivisible 
Jehovah ; — nay, nail him to the cross, and affect to 
see in his agony the pains and throes of Almighty 
God. 



108 



HOW 1 BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



Besides, see what great injustice they are doing 
that warm human heart, — that gushing kindness 
of a yielding and tender nature, — that ever-ready 
sympathy, — while thus, by their metaphysical jar- 
gon, they would remove him so far from the sphere 
of our affections, — they would forbid us to weep at 
the foot of that cross, — by persuading us that this 
innocent sufferer was an impassible God! Yes, 
they would have us believe that the expiation there 
made for our sins was a theological fiction. That 
this dark drama was a stupendous illusion. For 
surely it amounts to this, when it is one of the 
" ever-blessed Trinity " that dies, and that can die 
only in a metaphor ! 

Why should we any longer prate of the irrever- 
ence of Unitarians, when this blasphemy is being 
perpetrated! Come, look at this picture, and tell 
me what you think of it. "While bowing down 
before this divine-human, shall we not merit the 
reproof the angel administered to St. John, — " Wor- 
ship God " ? 



LETTER VII. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

In dealing with the doctrine of a " Vicarious 
Atonement," I shall not experience the same feel- 
ings of diffidence which have so often made me 
tremble while attempting themes which seemed to 
involve questions affecting the integrity of the sa- 
cred volume. For this doctrine, as I understand 
it, is a pure invention of man's ingenuity, having 
a cloudy foundation indeed in Scripture, but dart- 
ing upward spires of lightning, that dazzle, but do 
not terrify. I will begin, therefore, by 'stating two 
or three objections which obviously lie against it. 

And, first, its incompatibility with the declared 
character of God. 

That God created the first human pair in inno- 
cency and purity, and that they fell from that their 
happy estate by eating of that forbidden tree whose 
10 



110 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



taste "brought death into the world and all our 
woe," are propositions plainly set forth in Scripture, 
But that this offence brought after it any heavier 
punishment than moral infirmity and physical death, 
I disallow. The words of condemnation pronounced 
on that occasion will admit of no such construc- 
tion ; and it is a doctrine which receives from them 
no countenance. God said to these original trans- 
gressors, — " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of 
it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto 
dust shalt thou return." And when we consider 
that the idea of the soul's future existence is but 
vaguely and doubtfully referred to in the Jewish 
Scriptures, that God's judgments were all of a tem- 
poral description, and that the Apostle declares that 
it was the peculiar mission of Christ " to bring life 
and immortality to light through the Gospel," we 
can hardly fail to be convinced of the reasonable- 
ness of what I affirm respecting the consequences 
of that first transgression. 

Now, on the other hand, what is the commonly 
received or orthodox view ? It is this : that the 
fall of Adam not only exposed himself, but all his 
posterity to the end of the world, to the pains of 
eternal damnation; and that this terrible result could 



LETTER VII. 



Ill 



be averted from a very few only of that posterity, 
by the Son of God leaving the seat of his felicity 
and glory in heaven, and descending upon the earth 
there to labor, suffer, and die the death of a male- 
factor. In short, that this unexpected calamity of 
man's defection placed God in this painful dilem- 
ma, from which he could in no way deliver him- 
self save by submitting to this dreadful and humil- 
iating alternative. And that even now, after all 
this expenditure of suffering on his part, but a very 
few, an almost infinitesimal part, of mankind can 
be saved, the great body of them being irrevocably 
doomed to the never-ending torments of hell-fire. 
Could there be any thing more truly heartless and 
sanguinary than such a doctrine ? Such a doctrine 
concerning the purposes of Him who is infinite in 
wisdom, goodness, and power? 

But the character of the means devised for this 
occasion, whereby these elect few are redeemed from 
this ghastly fate, is another point of objection in 
my view of the doctrine. This means is, the blood 
of the spotless Lamb of God; the merits of the 
innocent sufferer applied through faith to the guilty, 
whereby the sin is atoned for and ceases any longer 

to be such. This seems to me to involve a sole- 

- 

cism in morals of a very bold character. For it 



112 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



appears to me, that, if man by his transgression 
compels the Son of God to propitiate the wounded 
clemency and satisfy the defrauded justice of Heav- 
en by his own undeserved pains, the amount of the 
charge that lies against the sinner is thereby but 
enhanced, and aggravated beyond the power of hu- 
man computation. It is but magnifying, not mit- 
igating, the atrocious character of the offence, when 
it involves the sinless no less than the sinful in its 
direful consequences. Therefore, instead of men 
being forgiven upon the ground of Christ's merits, 
they thereby but deserve the heavier punishment. 

Nor is this doctrine justified by the analogy drawn 
from a view of human affairs, in which it often hap- 
pens that the innocent suffer for the guilty; and 
that it is mainly owing to the labors and sacri- 
fices of the philanthropic and benevolent, that the 
unworthy are rescued from want and promoted to 
situations of ease and comfort. This is purely a so- 
cial question, and the fact is the result of our social 
condition, as much the product of our vices as of 
our virtues. It is therefore a question which is 
limited to our own temporal experience. Neither 
is the analogy perfect, and for this especial reason ; 
that, although by our pecuniary means, by our ad- 
vice, our sympathy, we may relieve the distress and 



LETTER VII. 



113 



recover the object of our attention from both the 
pressure of untoward circumstances and despon- 
dency of mind, we cannot transfer to that object 
any moral attribute of character. Our influence 
may effect much; but there our efforts terminate. 
However pure, bright, and even transcendently il- 
lustrious our character, the object of our benevo- 
lence can claim thence no moral worth with which 
to invest himself, and stand forth in the eyes of the 
community as a better man or a better woman. 
And as for the influences he may derive from con- 
tact and association with us, they may affect his 
reputation, — they may promote his temporal wel- 
fare, — they may, indeed, have a beneficial moral 
effect upon his character, — but this will all depend 
upon himself, upon his own free endeavors. But 
in nine cases out of ten these happy consequences 
do not follow such charitable interference. Nature 
and habit are too strong in the unfortunate individ- 
ual, and he sinks back into his former condition 
of helpless discontent. 

Again, it is against this doctrine that its opera- 
tion is post facto. As if, for instance, in relieving 
the individual in the case supposed above, the char- 
ges that stood against him for past immoral con- 
duct, — nay, the very infirmity out of which that 
10* 



114 HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

conduct grew, — were thereby absolved and ren- 
dered null, as well morally as actually. So Christ's 
merits accrue to the past, the present, and the fu- 
ture. And the consideration is, in this instance, — 
not money and confession, as in the Church of 
Rome, — but faith and confession. It is an act of 
the sinner's mind. How is it done? On view of 
all that Christ has done for him, he repents, — he 
turns to God, and does works meet for repentance ; 
and then the past is forgiven. Why? Not be- 
cause under the influence of this feeling he repents, 
but because of the merits of Christ's death. Now 
I can understand very well why God should for- 
give him on repentance; and how he might and 
did forgive sinners before Christ was heard of; but 
I cannot understand how what Christ has done 
affects this, save as an influence, for which I am 
willing to make the largest allowance. The view 
of Christ's merits as an actor in the drama of 
events must of course heighten and give a prac- 
tical force to this influence; but those merits must 
ever remain his own. They cannot be imputed 
to another; for it is not possible for any being to 
part with an abstraction, or for another to appro- 
priate it. 

But, once more, it is affirmed that these suffer- 



LETTER VII. 



115 



ings of Christ were required to satisfy the justice 
of God, and to restore the broken law to its primal 
integrity. Yet it seems to me that the justice of 
God was further violated in this condemnation of 
the innocent. And I have always thought that it 
was among savage tribes alone that an innocent 
party could satisfy the claims of a sanguinary code, 
where the real culprit had escaped. It certainly is a 
strange view of the quality of justice, that it should 
demand one wrong to atone for another. 

But we are told that the wrath of God could not 
otherwise be appeased. This is even a worse rea- 
son than the other. For if our sins by themselves, 
being, as they indisputably are, the natural efflo- 
rescence of our frailty, be so offensive to Heaven, 
surely the offensiveness of their character is but 
enhanced by the spectacle of Christ dying for them ; 
and this should heighten, not subdue, the wrath of 
God. 

Now it appears to me that in no event can a 
broken law be satisfied save by the penalty paid 
by the actual violator. He may escape that pen- 
alty by means of a legal quibble, by the influence 
of friends, by the talents of his counsel, or by bri- 
bery. But he is none the less guilty. The mur- 
derer, whether acquitted by a jury or hung under 



116 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



the rendering of their verdict, is in the one case 
as much a murderer as in the other. So is it with 
the sinner. No jury of divines, no theological 
fiction, can save him from the moral stain with 
which his sin taints him ; and the only atonement 
he can make to the moral law is to wash it out 
with his tears. Then God can forgive as well with- 
out as with the merit of another. 

Now I believe that we are all under law, as 
well as under grace. And I believe that the law 
will vindicate itself. And I believe that grace — 
which is but another expression for the active 
mercy of God — will come to the rescue of the 
sinner, whenever he repents and reforms. I be- 
lieve that grace is the sovereign remedy for moral 
ills, applied through this reformation. And I be- 
lieve that it is free to all. And this grace may 
come through Christ, through his merits, but only 
as a view of those merits influence our resolu- 
tions and conduct. Christ's moral power is our 
salvation, and he is our redeemer in so far as we 
profit by his teaching and example. And thus he 
may be "formed in us the hope of glory." Thus 
we may receive of his spirit ; thus be made like 
him, and apprehend "the truth as it is in Jesus." 
But nothing beyond this. Nothing by hypothe- 



LETTER VII. 



117 



cation. Nothing even by actual transfer. For 
more than this would bear the appearance of fraud. 
It would indict the believer as seeking the appro- 
priation to himself of another's virtues under " false 
pretences." 

But you orthodox people speak of God's wrath, 
of his anger, of the vengeance sought by him for 
his disregarded law. Do you not know that this 
language is merely metaphorical? That this wrath, 
this anger, is but the punishment that follows the 
law's violation ; that it is felt by all creatures who 
transgress the laws of their natural or spiritual 
nature ? It is so called, because God, the author 
of our nature, has affixed these penalties to their 
violation. But to suppose that God is angry with 
the poor, finite creature because of these errors of 
his infirmity, is to place him in the condition of 
an earthly potentate, the conduct of whose subjects 
might become to him occasions for the greatest 
unhappiness, might render every day of his exist- 
ence exquisitely miserable. You cannot so con- 
ceive of God. In the first place, it would be un- 
wise in him, nay, even weak, to subject himself 
to such annoyance. In the second place, it would 
give rise in him to those vengeful and malevolent 
feelings that are sources of continual disquiet, and 



118 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



that embitter and impair the mind. This were 
impossible. 

The very first article of your church affirms that 
God is i; without body, parts, or passions ; of in- 
finite power, wisdom, and goodness.*' With which, 
although I do not entirely agree, I am not disposed 
to find any very great fault. If ,; God is Love," 
as I believe he is, he must have passions ; for love 
is a passion. If he is goodness, that goodness 
must be emotional. If he is a spirit, he must be 
something ; and to be something he must have 
parts, though they be infinite parts of an infinite 
whole. 

If he have neither " parts nor passions,*' how can 
he be angry, how can he love? You therefore 
make God impassible ; as, by making him passible, 
you conceive you would subject him to the influ- 
ence of the malevolent feelings. And this miscon- 
ception is the great error of your theology. Hence 
I say of your doctrine, that it is not of God, be- 
cause it misrepresents him. You make him an 
impassible being, and yet bring in all this tragic 
apparatus of Christ's sufferings and death to ap- 
pease him. 

Now it appears to me, to form a worthy concep- 
tion of the character of God, we must admit his 



LETTER VII. 



119 



impassibility to the malevolent emotions, and his 
passibility to the good ; because the first cause 
unhappiness, the second happiness. We cannot 
apply the idea of anger, of vengeance, of dissat- 
isfaction, to any but an imperfect being ; but we 
can apply to a perfect being the idea of love, good- 
ness, wisdom, benignity, mercy, and find in it 
reason for our reverence and gratitude. God is 
not only a perfect being, but infinitely so, — infinite 
in goodness, in love, in the most gracious expres- 
sions of all gracious emotions. Well, when speak- 
ing of these characteristics, we must predicate of 
them activity. They cannot be dormant. They 
are not so even in the creature. Conceive, then, 
of these tender and lovely attributes of God's char- 
acter existing in ceaseless activity ; diffusing them- 
selves through the universe, inspiring the whole cre- 
ation with the most grateful emotions. In this 
way is God happy. In this way is he accessible 
to that only which is pure and happy. " He can- 
not look* upon sin." He cannot see evil ; for that 
would be to feel it. If he was " in Christ recon- 
ciling the world to himself," it was because he was 
present in his goodness. It was not to reconcile 
himself to the ivorld, as your theology would im- 
ply, but the world to him. And when we are won 



120 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



to holiness of life by Christ's religion, he recon- 
ciles us to God. When we become Christ's true 
disciples, and learn to appreciate the exceeding 
beauty of his character, he becomes our atone- 
ment ; because by this gracious influence upon 
our hearts, — wrought there by sight of his inno- 
cency and undeserved sufferings, — we forsake the 
ways of sin. Thus we accept his sacrifice ; by his 
blood are we cleansed, and by his merits goodness 
is propitiated. That he suffered for our sins is 
plain, because he suffered by reason of his having 
taken our sinful nature upon him. There is great 
merit, indeed, in what Christ has done ; and there- 
fore " God hath highly exalted him, and given him 
a name which is above every name," to be rev- 
erenced of all in heaven and upon earth. It was 
"for the joy set before him that he endured the 
cross " ; and he has his reward, as we shall have 
ours, for " he is set down on the right hand of the 
throne of God." 

Now, keeping in mind this idea of Gdti's being 
accessible to the good, but not the malevolent emo- 
tions, we may learn how men of old came to at- 
tribute to him the passions of anger, revenge, grief, 
sorrow, &c. They never looked at secondary causes. 
What God did by the physical and moral laws of 



LETTER VII. 



121 



the universe, they regarded as being done directly 
by him. And in this way the heathen came to 
deify nature, and erect statues to divinities which 
were nothing else but the various manifestations 
of God's providences. Hence, among the Israel- 
ites, when a person violated a command contained 
in the Decalogue, he offended God; and God is 
represented as personally appearing to direct the 
infliction of the penalty. When the person had 
suffered, the wrath of God was appeased. But we 
know that this language was used by way of ac- 
commodation to their understandings. We know 
that we cannot make God angry ; because if we 
could, we could make him unhappy. But it is 
possible that we can please him ; for goodness de- 
lights not only in communicating itself, but in wit- 
nessing goodness in others. Hence our good actions 
bear their report to heaven; but our bad actions 
fall back upon ourselves. 

When the heart is opened up toward God, good 
influences depart from him like good angels, to flow 
into it, to console it, purify, and transform it. 
Prayer, therefore, is the greatest, the most poten- 
tial means of operating in us those happy changes 
of sentiment and feeling, which are the means of 
our present and future happiness. These good in- 
11 



122 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



fluences are present everywhere ; ever knocking at 
the door of the heart, ever seeking to become its 
guest, and show it the way toward the fountain of 
all goodness. 

There is an argument much used by Trinita- 
rians, to which I ought to have adverted in the 
body of this letter. But it did not occur to me. 
And as it is important that it should be noticed, 
I must beg leave to call your attention to it in this 
place. It is this : — 

They tell us that Christ possessed a double na- 
ture, — an idea much litigated in primitive times, — 
and that he sometimes spoke in the character of 
one, sometimes in that of another; and further, to 
get rid of the objection that God could not suffer, 
they say that it was the human, not the divine, 
nature in him which suffered. This looks so much 
like what it really is, a mere quibble, a most shal- 
low sophism, that it is intrinsically unworthy of 
notice. But it is affirmed by men of sense and 
learning, and for their sakes should be treated, if 
not with respect, certainly with attention. 

Now to say that Christ did not suffer in his di- 
vine nature, is to undermine the entire system of 
a vicarious atonement ; and to say that he did, is- 
to deny your doctrine of the divine impassibility. 



LETTER VII. 



123 



But how could so greet merit attach to his suffer- 
ings unless it were in his divine nature he suffered ? 
He made atonement for the sins of the whole world, 

— past, present, and to come. He satisfied the 
broken law by enduring all that was due to the 
offender. He stood in the place of those who had 
committed " an infinite sin against an infinite be- 
ing," and the merit of the deed was infinite in its 
capacity. In his agony in the garden and upon 
the cross he endured all that the otherwise lost 
would have endured throughout eternity, as the 
just award of their disobedience. Else the atone- 
ment were not complete. Therefore he must have 
suffered in his divine nature, or there were no 
u infinite satisfaction." 

But if, on the other hand, he suffered in his 
human nature only, — his divine not participating, 

— such great results could not be predicated of 
his sufferings. He suffered simply as a man ; and 
no more than thousands of others have suffered. 
He fell a victim to the untoward circumstances of 
the times. It was the condition of his humanity. 
It does not signify that he was good and pure. 
He was human ; and God does not delight in hu- 
man sacrifices, or, indeed, in human sufferings. 
Therefore they cannot propitiate his favor. They 



124 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



rather displease him. Else he is not good. He 
is vengeful and sanguinary, — a Moloch. The sense 
of these propositions is very clear. They are what 
I should call self-evident propositions. 

Again, if he suffered as a divine being, he did 
it to please himself. It was gratuitous, and could 
have no moral relation to us. It is a fact, there- 
fore, which to affirm or deny is of no sort of im- 
portance. He could not suffer for our sins ; it would 
require him to be sinful. It is a contradiction in 
terms. None but creatures of an imperfect moral 
and physical nature can suffer, — unless they be 
brutes. To say, therefore, that God suffered for 
us, is to degrade him to our level. It is to force 
him to do that which his nature abhors. 

Affirm either branch of your argument, and it 
not only destroys the other, it is simply absurd in 
itself. 



LETTER VIII. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

I think we may see in the institution of sacri- 
fices a disposition manifested by the Supreme Be- 
ing to accommodate the form of worship to the 
intellectual and moral constitution of the worship- 
per. The prevalent idea of the Patriarchal and Mo- 
saic ages was that of a Deity to be propitiated by 
sacrifices ; and we see that idea seized upon and 
directed in this way to the most important end. It 
was wisely left, doubtless, to the activity of the hu- 
man mind to discover, in after ages, by its progres- 
sive development, the insufficiency of this idea to 
meet the demands of a more discursive and enlight- 
ened intellect. When Christ came upon earth, this 
idea had wellnigh become obsolete. He saw this, 
and predicted its speedy extinction. In the pagan 
world we venture to affirm that it had virtually be- 
ll * 



126 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



come so already. It could not well survive the bold 
and inquisitive scepticism of philosophy. That it 
was still practically exhibited among the Greeks and 
Romans, is a fact to be accounted for by referring 
it to the common mind, in which ignorance con- 
served the absurdest superstitions, and fondly held 
on for a while longer to the form from which the 
spirit had departed. So in Judea it still maintained 
an uncertain tenure. But it had been declared by the 
prophet, that, when Messiah was cut off, it should 
cease there too. It did so cease about that time. 
But it signalized more than the death of Christ, — 
it was also the act of the spirit of the age. And 
hence we may say, with the assurance of absolute 
certainty, that, until the civilized world again sinks 
into barbarism, sacrifices are destined to remain in 
abeyance. They may continue some time longer in 
the Church of Rome, which is still half pagan ; but 
even there the light will yet enter to expel them. 

Taking these facts into consideration, we may see 
why it was the Apostles laid so much stress upon 
the death of Christ as a sacrifice, — a sacrifice which 
included in it the entire Leyitical idea of an atone- 
ment, a propitiation, and a piacular offering ; — it 
was simply because they were Jews. And hence we 
find this idea preserved in the Christian religion, as a 



LETTER VIII. 



127 



doctrine denoting its Jewish origin ; but which, you 
may rest assured, is to be superseded also, as well as 
the obsolete idea for which it stands, in so far as it 
regards the virtue ascribed to it ; that is, as designed 
to do, pro tanto) what the old sacrifices did, atone to 
God for our offences. I say that this doctrine is yet 
to be superseded by a more acceptable doctrine of 
moral influences ; in which the death of Christ is to 
receive a new interpretation more worthy the char- 
acter of Deity. 

When St. Paul said, that " eld things " had passed 
away, and "all things had become new 7 '; the old 
things were the things of the Levitical law, and not 
the doctrine. " For," he concludes, " he hath made 
him to be sin for us [that is, a sin-offering], who knew 
no sin ; that we might be made the righteousness of 
God in him." For St. Paul held as a Christian 
what he had before held as a Jew, that " without the - 
shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." So 
that the change consisted in this, — that, the temple 
service being abrogated, Christ represented the whole 
economy, in his own person, as high-priest, sacri- 
ficer, and the sacrifice. And that this change had the 
added glory of making that universal which before 
was only national, — that now salvation was come 
to the Gentiles. In this consisted the whole scope 



128 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



of the Apostle's teaching, in so far as it regarded the 
difference in essentials between the two religions. 
The doctrine of the resurrection was a new fact, 
which does not interfere with this resume of the 
Apostle's system. 

Now, what I have to say of this sacrificial system 
is simply and plainly this, that it is obsolete. It is 
indeed still emtfalmed in our creeds and formularies, 
and cathedrals are built over it as shrines honoring a 
dead relic ; and there are orders, and vestments, and 
rites, and men to act the pantomime and utter lan- 
guage — the ideas of which also are obsolete — set 
down for them. But there is no living truth in it. 
It is dead, and awaits its burial. 

Now do you suppose that Christ taught this sys- 
tem ? If you do, I do not. His face was set against 
it. He declared that the hour was coming when 
men should no longer worship at Jerusalem or 
Mount Gerizim, — that is, offer the worship of rites 
and sacrifices, — but worship the Father in spirit and 
in truth. He nowhere speaks of himself as a sacri- 
fice. He speaks of his death as an event which, un- 
der the providence of God, was to bring in a new 
era of religious truth and freedom; and oot as a 
sacrifice which was to perpetuate the old idea he 
would abolish, under a new name. The only rite he 



LETTER VIII. 



129 



retained was that of baptism. The bread and wine 
were but memorials instituted for a limited time ; 
that is " till his coming again," which the Apostles 
understood, till the dissolution of the Jewish polity. 

Christ, who alone could speak in entire disregard 
of national and local prejudices, is seen by us through 
the duller intellectual lights of his followers, who 
were thoroughly Jewish. Therefore, in endeavoring 
to catch the spirit of his teaching, we must some- 
times deny the words. Nor must we leave out of 
view the important fact, that, while a revelator 
speaks to an age, he also speaks through it, and 
looks to an enlightened future to do him that justice 
which a contemporary blindness denies him. That 
justice has not yet been done the Great Teacher. 
But it surely awaits him. 

The death of Christ is a great moral spectacle. It 
was a sacrifice in this sense only ; as it was made by 
himself to the truth and in confirmation of the truth. 
But it did not atone for sin ; because^ on the other 
hand, it was the deed of sin executed in malice. It 
was offered by an incensed priesthood to the god of 
bigotry ; not to the God of mercy. The innocence 
of the victim conferred no honor on the sacrifices. 
It was their condemnation. How then could it be 
offered for them and for us ? The light shone in the 



130 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



darkness, and the darkness received it not, but hast- 
ed to put it out? Was this a merit in the darkness? 
I trow not. It was not to those who killed him, " he 
gave power to become the sons of God " ; but " to 
those who received him." Yet we accord to the 
former the more worthy deed; or while we decry 
them, we confess that they have done more for the 
forgiveness of our sins than any of his friends could 
ever have been brought to do. "What inconsistency ! 

Now it seems to me that, if Christ's death was 
destined to effect those wonders ascribed to it in our 
technical theology, it should have been the Apostles 
who crucified him, — offered him in faith and peni- 
tence as the Lamb, — he consenting, like Isaac, in 
speechless innocency. Then we might have found 
consistency in the idea of a sacrifice and an atone- 
ment. But to dignify a murder with that name is 
out of all reason. A judicial murder ; for it could 
be nothing else ; — could God be pleased with this ! 
— with the spectacle of an infuriated, brutal mob 
dragging his only-begotten Son, fainting with terror 
and loss of blood, to the place of execution, nail- 
ing him there to the cross, and mocking his agony ! 
Gracious heaven ! how can men be so infatuated ! 
Even nature showed signs of indignant sorrow ! 
Much more should the Universal Father ! 



LETTER VIII. 



131 



But I will say no more, lest you should think I do 
riot entertain those proper views of that tragic event 
which become a Christian. If you think so, you do 
me injustice. I speak thus but the better to expose 
the idea of a vicarious atonement. I would not 
deny the great merit of his thus dying for us, and 
the innumerable blessings which the shedding of his 
most precious blood hath procured for us. They are 
abundantly set forth in the New Testament. But I 
would deny that that sanguinary act in any direct 
and official manner has any thing to do with the for- 
giveness of our sin. I deny intrinsic merit to any 
sacrifice, whether of man, bird, beast, or fruit of the 
earth. So does the Bible deny it. It teaches us 
that God prefers mercy to sacrifices, and obedience 
to burnt-offerings. They were mere instrumental- 
ities, to fall into disuse so soon as men could obtain 
juster and purer notions of God. 

There is another point of view from which we 
should examine this doctrine of a " vicarious atone- 
ment," which is this, — as an idea of the Jewish insti- 
tution expressed in a language purely technical, and 
not popular, — as a science in which the terms made 
use of have this diverse interpretation, that they sig- 
nify one thing to the popular understanding and an- 
other to the professional. Now the language of the 



132 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



Jewish ritual is a technical or professional language, 

which the writers of the New Testament, being 
themselves Jews, have used in a technical and pro- 
fessional, and possibly not in a popular sense. But 
it is, likewise, metaphorical ; and, as such, often wide 
of the fact of which it affects to be the predicate. 

Now we assume that St. Paul always spoke of 
Christ, when as apposite to the offerings or sacrifices 
of the temple, in this language. As. for example: — 
Did the high-priest make atonement for the sins of 
the people ? So did Christ, the high-priest of the 
New Testament. Did the high-priest offer a pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice ? So did Christ. Was this act of 
the high-priest equivalent to the redemption of the 
worshipper ? So was that of Christ. Did the high- 
priest thus act as mediator between God and the 
people ? So did Christ. "Was he their intercessor ? 
So was Christ. Was it a lamb without spot or 
blemish that was offered ? Such was Christ. Did 
the blood of the victim cleanse from sin ? So did 
the blood of Christ. And so on. Compare Leviti- 
cus with the Epistle to the Hebrews, and you will 
find the parallel exact in every particular. 

Now that St. Paul attached a far greater degree 
of importance to the acts and offices of Christ, than 
to those of the Jewish high-priest, is beyond ques- 



LETTER VIII. 



133 



tion ; since his once offering of himself sufficed for 
all time ; and now " he ever liveth to make interces- 
sion fof us." But did St. Paul ascribe a virtue to 
that offering — a virtue which in a practical sense 
attached itself to the believer — which he did not 
see in the other ? Was there any thing in what he 
said to authorize us so to popularize that language 
as to represent our orthodox idea of a " vicarious 
atonement" ? 

Now the doctrine of a vicarious atonement is, be- 
yond question, a necessary adjunct of that of the 
Trinity ; for, granting the very strange notion of the 
wrath of God clamoring for the blood of the violator 
of his law, it cannot be supposed that any person of 
less dignity than the second Divinity could be com- 
petent to make the required satisfaction. The poor 
sin-soiled soul could not do it. For if God be so 
greatly exasperated that neither the tears nor the suf- 
ferings of his creatures can recall him to the remem- 
brance of mercy and forgiveness, unless he have 
blood, — for, says the Jew, " without the shedding of 
blood there is no remission of sins," — why, then it 
must be blood of the purest, — of " a lamb without 
spot " ; he must have that which shall flow from 
the noblest and most loving heart, — the blood of 
one the least deserving of punishment, and whom it 
12 



134 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



would be the greatest injustice to punish. And 
this sufferer, himself a coequal with the incensed 
Majesty, can devise no better way to set forth be- 
fore the admiring eyes of men and angels the great 
goodness, the benevolence, the grace of the Univer- 
sal Father, than by submitting to this injustice. 
The unreasonable demand is satisfied by the un- 
reasonable compliance. 

But what adds to the improbability of this doc- 
trine is the inference derived from the above fact, 
that God submitted his Son to this shame and 
suffering from his inability to devise a better means 
of reconciliation ; and that such was his gratifica- 
tion in beholding his agony, that he remitted the 
penalties due the broken law upon this ground 
alone, — the Son's exemplary conduct, against whom 
the law had no claim. 

Now, how was this end brought about ? That 
is, what were the instrumentalities ? Men's sins, 
of course. When this Son appeared on earth, we 
see how he was treated. Was this part of the 
Divine intention ? It is so said. Nay, it was pre- 
ordained, that they, with wicked hands, should take 
and slay this messenger of grace. So St. Peter 
says. So Christ himself tells us, "that the Scrip- 
ture may be fulfilled." The act of cruelty and 



LETTER VIII. 



135 



wrong was infallibly devised and compelled by an 
irreversible decree, — else, mark the consequence, 
there could have been no vicarious atonement, no 
sacrifice for sin. What sin ? The compelled sin, 
that compelled the act. It is all in God's hands ; 
and you make him go this round-about and equiv- 
ocal way to accomplish his own purpose. He is 
not content to do it himself, he must make his 
creatures the guilty participants. He must con- 
demn them for it, and save them for it. This 
wicked act of the perpetrators of it is the act that 
pleases, that conciliates his favor. He forgives them 
the sooner because of its enormity. 

But suppose the people of Judea, instead of re- 
jecting and crucifying Christ, had received him with 
open arms, — had gladly heard his words and fol- 
lowed him, — and that, as a consequence of this, 
his life had been prolonged to a good old age, and 
then, dying in his quiet bed, he had been buried 
with fitting honors. Suppose, after this, his religion 
had become the religion of that country, — nay, 
even of the whole world, — what would have fol- 
lowed from this, upon the plan of a vicarious atone- 
ment ? Why, through this wise and pious effect 
of his teaching, the whole world would have been 
lost, — damned beyond hope of redemption, — for 
there could have been no sacrifice. 



136 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



And yet I would observe, lest it should be said 
that such an event was impossible, that Christ la- 
bored to this end. It was professedly his most 
earnest desire. How did he weep over Jerusalem 
because of her rejection of him! How often appeal 
with tears of earnest entreaty to his hearers to ac- 
cept him ! Did he do this, knowing it to be im- 
possible ? "Was he indeed guilty of such gross 
deception ? Did the man Cttrist Jesus seek to win 
them to repentance, while the God Christ Jesus 
withheld them ? Or did he invite them to enter 
the kingdom of heaven, and then shut the door in 
their faces ? Or did he do this to make their sin 
the greater, that he might have the greater merit 
of forgiving it ? Or did he do it for fear they 
would not crucify him ? 

These, certainly, are not light or captious ques- 
tions. They are asked in all soberness. They 
arise naturally and inevitably out of a rational 
view of the doctrine of a vicarious atonement as 
a predicate of the doctrine of the Trinity. They 
do not express my convictions, and therefore I can- 
not be required to answer them. 

The whole doctrine might be summed up in this 
simple proposition : — God is angry with mankind, 
and he kills his well-beloved, his only-begotten Son, 



LETTER VIII. 



137 



to appease his anger. What a mystery ! you ex- 
claim. I see no mystery in it, but a very great 
absurdity. And the more you exalt the character 
of that Son, the greater the absurdity becomes. 

Now, your divines may bring up before me an 
array of arguments from the provisions of the Levit- 
ical code, and discourse about the temple services, 
the sin-offerings and the peace-offerings, the pass- 
over and the paschal lamb, and a thousand other 
matters of the kind. But they don't suffice. I am 
not a Jew, and want a reason. I am not to be 
convinced without one. 

But a reason, it seems, I cannot have. It is a 
doctrine of the Church, — one of the mysteries of 
godliness, — which we are not to look into. So 
men are to be saved by their ignorance. They are 
to take the Church's word for it. This is, beyond 
question, what the Church desires. And this is the 
old ler.ven of Rome. Very convenient for priestly 
power and hierarchal rule, but not for the progress 
of ideas. Put out the light of reason, that you 
may see by the candles on the altar. Behold the 
consecrated bread, — the Christ of the Church, — 
the one sacrifice perpetually renewed, — the ever- 
flowing fountain of blood shed for sin ! These are 
impressive words. But they are destitute of life. 

12* - 



138 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



They are the coinage of a system long since de- 
funct. 

The relation in which man now stands to his 
Maker, he has occupied in all ages and all coun- 
tries. No external facts can change it. It is that 
of a moral and spiritual being subject to the laws 
that govern his nature, — these laws having God 
for their institutor. He has revealed to man from 
time to time the influence which a respect for these 
laws will have upon his well-being. He has further 
shown him, that the spiritual and moral nature that 
is in him is eternal, — that it will survive the death 
of the body and enter into a superior state, whither, 
with a sense of its personal identity, it will carry 
the remembrance of the past, the taint or habit of 
its virtues or its vices, which will there also influ- 
ence its well-being. And his concern for man's 
present and future welfare has been actively exhib- 
ited, not only in those various revelations which he 
has made through patriarchs and prophets, but es- 
pecially in the mission of Jesus Christ. But these 
facts have in no respect altered the relation in 
which men stand to him. Men are held to the 
same degree and kind of responsibility now as they 
were before the flood. Righteousness and unright- 
eousness remain as distant from each other as ever. 



LETTER VIII. 



139 



Sin is just as sinful, — virtue as meritorious. For 
inasmuch as God is unchangeable, so are his prin- 
ciples, — so are the rules of conduct proposed for 
man's observance. Christ might die a thousand 
times, and it could not lessen the degree of man's 
responsibility to God. Nor, for a like reason, 
could he be saved a whit the easier. It has ever 
been required of him to repent, and to do works 
meet for repentance. St. Paul, when speaking of 
Christ, may say, " There is no other name given 
under heaven among men whereby we must be 
saved." But St. Peter will still continue to affirm, 
" Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of 
persons ; but in every nation, he that feareth him 
and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." 

But while I affirm all this, I do not deny the 
power of moral influence upon man's heart and 
mind. In those revelations made by God, and in 
the mission of Christ, I see those moral influences 
brought to bear upon them. I see important re- 
sults flowing from them. Because they bring man 
into conformity with truth. Because his moral 
nature is affected by them. Not because of the 
merit of the person delivering the lessons from 
which they are derived. The teacher may influ- 
ence, and indeed must influence, the learner, either 



140 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



orally or by written precept. But because the 
teacher is good, the learner is not necessarily so. 
Faith in the teacher may do a great deal. So may 
a benevolent and truthful mind. But only as in- 
fluences to good. Not by transfer. There is noth- 
ing vicarious in it. 

So the spirit that God gives to one he gives to 
all. He were a respecter of persons if he did not. 
But men occupy a great variety of positions under 
his providences. Their circumstances vary greatly. 
They cannot, if they would, be all good alike. But 
God is just, — he will not require of them that 
which they cannot have. If not here, he will here- 
after place them in favorable conditions under 
which to develop their faculties. It is essential 
that they be good, to be happy. Hence the idea 
of a purgatory is not revolting to reason, any more 
than to Scripture. It is only its abuse by the 
Romish Church that has made it so. They would 
make merchandise of God's goodness to the profit 
of their treasury, and to confirm their power over 
men's consciences.- This is something worse than 
crime. It is a deed without a name, by which its 
enormity can be made known. They have a great 
deal to say about works of supererogation, which 
is but an extension of your doctrine of a " vicarious 



LETTER VIII. 



141 



atonement," and about as sound. Only they sell 
theirs, while you give yours away ; that is, upon 
the easy condition of faith. Well, one is worth 
about as much as the other. The man that can- 
not get along without either has not much to hope 
for. 



LETTER IX. 



New York, January, 1852, 

My dear Friend,— 

As apposite to your doctrine of a "vicarious 
atonement," by the application of which to man's 
moral nature you directly interfere with his respon- 
sibility, thereby shifting tie burden of his guilt 
upon another in consideration of his faith, you 
affirm another doctrine, that of " eternal punish- 
ments." I say apposite, not because they are not 
opposed to each other; but because they present 
two unreasonable extremes, which, in your system, 
face each other to the shame of both. 

Now one of the arguments put forth by the de- 
fenders of this doctrine is, that it has ever been 
received in the Church from the earliest time, and 
therefore has the sanction of its antiquity and uni- 
versal reception for its recommendation. This claim 
I willingly allow; but consider it as presumptive 



LETTER IX. 



143 



evidence against the soundness of the doctrine it 
is offered in support of. For is not the history of 
the human race a history of its progressive devel- 
opment in physical and moral science ? A history 
of gradual but sure unfoldings of its mental capa- 
city and the melioration of its social conditions? 
So I read it. And I see in it a development from 
an exceedingly low point in civilization and knowl- 
edge, to another in every way higher, — more be- 
coming man's expanding powers and more expres- 
sive of his destiny. The past, as you retrograde 
towards it, loses itself in darkness, and comes out 
of this again rude, savage, and superstitious. And 
savage men make savage laws. They are not made 
for liberty, but coercion. They are the edicts of 
power that delights in blood. Of course, the the- 
ology of such an age would be like itself, — repre- 
senting the fierce, revengeful mind of the age. Its 
terrors for the evil-doer would be physical torments 
inflicted everlastingly. 

Now this is the dark era from which we of 
this nineteenth century have emerged. We have 
come slowly out of it. And this gradual emer- 
gence has been marked by meliorations in the forms 
of civil governments ; in legislative enactments ; in 
the treatment of criminals ; in the usages of war ; 



144 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



in diplomatic intercourse ; in social relations ; in 
manners ; in opinions ; in sentiment ; and lastly, in 
virtue and by force of all these, an effort toward 
meliorations in our inhuman and unheavenly sys- 
tems of theology. We trace back these systems 
as the product of the despotism and bigotry of that 
anterior age. first promulgated by an authority that 
has cherished and guarded them with a grim in- 
flexibility ever since. 

But I rejoice to say that this age has, in many 
directions, outgrown and discarded these systems. 
In the expansive and free pulsations of the great 
heart of our humanity, as expressed in the tone 
of thought of superior minds, we see a disposition 
manifested to let this doctrine of eternal punish- 
ments drop into forgetfulness and silence. Every 
day the voice that declaims it from our pulpits 
falters in its accents : and every day more ears are 
pained and shrink from hearing it. This is natu- 
ral. and, being natural, is inevitable. From dis- 
liking it, men will proceed to denying it; and from 
denying it, to denouncing it, — denouncing it with 
an earnestness and magnanimity that will mantle 
the cheek of the educated barbarian who utters it 
with shame. 

This is the view I take of the doctrine as an 



LETTER IX. 



145 



historical question. Of its strictly and purely theo- 
logical character I have more to say, 

The presence of evil in the world is a fact of 
which too many complain to require proof of its ex- 
istence. Men do dispute about its origin; and out 
of this dispute there arises a vast variety of doc- 
trines and opinions. I shall not enter very largely 
upon the discussion of this point, and will content 
myself with saying, that the existence of evil in a 
world that came from the hands of a good, wise, 
and omnipotent Creator, proves that it had its' ori- 
gin in the corruption of that which was good ; for, 
inasmuch as God is before all things, though he 
cannot create evil, he may create that which by 
reason of its infirmity will generate the evil. God 
alone is perfect. Yet he cannot create his equal, 
as Trinitarianism would seem to affirm ; therefore 
whatever he creates must be imperfect ; and from 
this imperfection there flows this direful conse- 
quence. 

But it pertains to our subject to inquire, Did 
God foresee this consequence ? and, foreseeing it, 
was he able to prevent it ? That he foresaw it, 
and did not provide against it, will readily be grant- 
ed. That he was able to prevent it, none will deny. 
If he did not foresee it, it was a surprise and dis- 

13 



146 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



appointment to him. If he was not able to pre- 
vent it, he was weak. Now we grant neither of 
these inferences as true. He foresaw it; but, for 
reasons sufficient to himself, it is credible that he 
did not desire to prevent it. Perhaps, in looking 
through it, he saw a greater good beyond. But 
this conclusion leads to another, which, however 
startling, cannot be logically avoided; — it is this, 
that, in permitting the evil, he assumed the respon- 
sibility of it. Assumed it to this extent, at least, 
that he will provide the remedy and compensate 
the creature who was "made subject to vanity not 
willingly," says St. Paul, "but by reason of him 
who hath subjected the same in hope." And, that I 
may not be accused of undue boldness, I will quote 
the prophet uttering the language of Deity : " I 
form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, 
and create evil. I the Lord do all these things." 

Indeed, we cannot get rid of this conclusion. He 
who is before all things, and by whom all things 
subsist, is the Author of all things. And the pres- 
ent constitution of all things is the condition of 
their subsistence. The Tempter himself, we are 
told, is a fallen angel. And before there can be 
fallen angels, there must be upright angels. And 
to create good angels in knowledge of their event- 



LETTER IX. 



147 



ual defection, is to furnish the antecedent to the 
consequence. We do not affirm in this, that God 
is the author of evil, but of the imperfect beings 
who generate this evil. He may assume the re- 
sponsibility of it without being the author of it; 
but it implicates him in so far as to authorize us 
to look to him for something by which it shall be 
finally extinguished, and its consequences averted 
from those who now suffer from it. It is a sound 
maxim in law, that he who does a particular ac- 
tion by means of another does it himself, — qui 
facit per alium facit per se. He does not do it 
personally, but is morally and legally responsible 
for it. 

Do not too hastily accuse me of irreverence in 
uttering these opinions. In my view of it, present 
evil is a future good ; for I believe that God per- 
mits the evil that its experience may vindicate the 
claims of virtue to our preference, and so augment 
the final happiness of all his creatures. I believe 
that God is bound by every moral attribute of his 
character to rescue himself from the cruel suspi- 
cion the presence of this evil seems to imply, and 
at last to assemble the whole universe before him 
to applaud his wisdom and praise his goodness. 
And I believe he will do it. But he will do it 



148 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



"in fulness of time." He will do it when the sad 
experience of the creature shall work out this sal- 
vation through his sins and his tears. For it is 
the quality of a rational, but imperfect creature, 
to approach the goal of his desires through labor 
and trial. These prepare and invigorate him for 
the enjoyment of the prize. He who has never 
known suffering can scarcely be said to be quali- 
fied for happiness. He whose soul has been pol- 
luted by sin must become pure to appreciate the 
contrast; and from the depths of the past derive 
reasons for present gratulation. Fulness is more 
than present gratification to him who has known 
want. To be born into this world, to experience 
its sorrows, its pains, and its sins, and at last to 
yield to the dreadful destiny that ends our woes, 
by concentrating them all in one overwhelming 
agony of fear, and to die, — alas ! what a sad wreck 
were this of so glorious a work as man, did not 
that death discover to us, as with menacing ges- 
ture it opens the door of the grave, the ever-during 
blessedness that lies in its radiant and smiling beau- 
ty beyond! Yes, in truth, it were else a world to 
weep over and despair of. Not the creation of a 
wise and good being, but of some malignant de- 
mon who was destined to satiate his cruel dispo- 



LETTER IX. 



149 



sition with the torments and groans of its miserable 
tenantry for ever ! 

For what else does your system make of it? Out 
of the millions who die annually, how few. how very 
few, can escape that eternal agony, — that eternal 
consequence of their short-lived sins ! Sins often 
committed by force of circumstances stronger than 
themselves, — often through ignorance, which they 
had no means of enlightening, — often through pro- 
genital infirmity of constitution, which no instruc- 
tion could remedy, — often through temptation. — 
through weakness, — through guile, — through unbe- 
lief. Take a congregation of respectable men and 
women, of a fair share of moral and intellectual 
culture ; and how very few of them, by your doc- 
trine, can be saved ! How few of these come to the 
communion ; and of these even, how few can be re- 
garded as " hopefully converted " ! How very nar- 
row your " platform " becomes, and that not crowd- 
ed. It were a dreadful thing to say, — too dreadful 
for rational belief, — that ten, or five, or even one 
living soul, out of the whole history of the earth, 
was to be damned, and damned for ever. I say that 
this would be a dreadful spectacle to present before 
the mind. But when your theology sends the great 
mass of human beings to this tormenting flame, I 

13* 



150 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



want language to express the feeling of horror it ex- 
cites in my breast. See how you dishonor the Deity 
in bringing this reproach of his suffering creatures 
upon him ! See how you take from him the merci- 
ful sovereignty over millions of those that accrue to 
the benefit of his hated rival, the Devil. Nay ? you 
bring down Deity himself to suffer and die for their 
salvation, and then doom him to the grief of disap- 
pointment, — to shed his blood in vain. Is it not 
really accusing him of impotence and injustice ? 

But you are not content with saying that the 
wicked shall suffer ; — they must suffer the most ex- 
quisite torments, and they must suffer them for ever. 
The heathen mythology could satisfy the cruel tem- 
per of Heaven in condemning Prometheus to feed 
the vulture with his quivering flesh for thirty thou- 
sand years. But this is not enough for the delicate 
and shrinking sensibility of Calvinism. The poor 
soul in torment might console itself with the reflec- 
tion, that, though it w r ere thirty thousand years, it 
would pass away ; and this would rob Calvinism of 
its " satisfaction " ! It must keep it there always, 
that the blessed may gaze upon its writhings as a 
pleasing contrast to heighten their own felicity. This 
is the ferocious spirit in w 7 hich your creed is con- 
ceived. 



LETTER IX. 



151 



Have you ever seriously considered what we are 
to understand by the word " eternity " ? Or can 
you by any effort of mind measure its vast import ? 
An idea which of itself would make the slightest 
sense of disquietude more unendurable than a thou- 
sand years of physical pain. Suppose this earth 
were made up of the minutest grains of sand to be 
found upon the sea-shore ; and suppose that every 
grain of sand stood for a thousand years. Why, you 
might count over these grains of sand, one by one, 
through this inappreciable series of years >; and yet 
it would not form the smallest portion of time com- 
pared with eternity, — it would not be as much as 
one second in a million of years. And yet the poor 
creature whose reason has rejected your creed must 
live out these countless ages in inexpressible tor- 
ture, and then feel that his sufferings have but just 
begun. 

Do you, or can you, believe this? Or do you 
believe that there are living men and women who 
believe it? No. Your whole life is a practical 
contradiction to such belief. It is impossible that a 
rational being can believe it. To enter fully into its 
dreadful meaning, to contemplate it in all its appall- 
ing features, and to feel its full and tremendous im- 
port, is to go stark mad. I say the human reason 



152 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



would become a wreck under the weight of such a 
tremendous idea. 

But look at the great mass of people who profess 
to consent to the truth of this doctrine. How are 
they employed? What are the ideas and objects 
that engage their attention and engross their affec- 
tions ? Do you see them hurrying through the 
streets haggard with fear ? Do you see them strug- 
gling in prayer with their vengeful Deity, in forget- 
fulness of their daily business and pleasures ? Do 
you see them going plainly clad, and faring abstemi- 
ously, that they may give their goods to feed the 
poor and send the Gospel to the perishing heathen? 
Do you see them forsake the gain and craft of trade? 
Do you see them day and night watering their 
couches with their tears? O, no, nothing of this. 
These are the gayest, the most jocund, the most 
luxurious livers, the most punctual attendants upon 
fashion, the most showy in their equipages, the hard- 
est in their bargains. How pleasantly they trip along 
in silk and broadcloth over this living Golgotha ! 
How languidly they recline in their cushioned pews, 
and how listlessly they join in the worship of their 
fearful God! And the clergyman himself, who doles 
the bread of life to these famishing souls, — how 
charmingly elegant is his diction ! how beautiful his 



LETTER IX. 



153 



metaphors! how neatly arranged his periods! And 
then his manner so easy ; so moderately warm ; so 
tender and so deferential! But his subject? It is 
enough, if true, to make an angel weep ! But it is 
not true. And no one feels it to be true. It is a 
mere conventionalism. A barren terror. A mask. 
In short, a very sober sham ! 

And now I ask, Can this striking incongruity in 
faith and practice have other than an immoral influ- 
ence upon the heart? Must it not show itself either 
in wasting the energies in fanatical efforts, or in 
contracting and hardening the sympathies, and gen- 
erating the most intense selfishness? Accustomed 
to look upon the great mass of mankind as living 
under the curse of God, — as outcasts from his com- 
passion, and doomed to eternal destruction ; and to 
regard themselves as the special and elect favorities 
of his mercy ; will not their pity often turn to scorn, 
and will they not, like David, add their anathemas to 
augment the disgrace of these unfortunates ? This 
would seem to be the predestined channel into which 
such sentiments must flow. And then, how dishon- 
orable to the Universal Father! When the poor 
African makes his fetish a malignant demon, it is a 
rational consequence that he ascribes to him a dis- 
position to delight in torment. But your theology 



154 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



makes God the malignant power, and the Devil sim- 
ply his agent, who acts out his inflictions in the 
name of justice. 

I too concede him justice ; and all I ask in behalf 
of this world, already articulate with woe, is justice. 
But he is not only just, he is wise ; and never could 
have committed the disastrous error you attribute to 
him. For his pleasure, and not for the sport of a 
Nero or Caligula, all things are and were created* 
He is love ; and love delights in propagating the 
pulsations of its own affectionate heart through the 
hearts of all its creatures. He is felicity ; and his 
smile it is that should kindle the flame of joy in 
every bosom. He is mercy ; and will fly to the 
rescue of every soul sitting in darkness and sorrow. 

This is my creed. And the evil he permits is 
permitted only to enhance the final good, — to swell 
the amount of happiness at last. The suffering that 
ensues from the presence of sin is not a judicial in- 
fliction ; it is a moral consequence. It will adhere 
to the soul in this world and in the next, till that 
soul be purified ; till it be washed in the tears of 
repentance and cleansed from its defilement But 
how long, in that life which is to come, the violated 
principles of our moral nature are to react upon 
that nature, let us not presume to say. But surely 



LETTER IX. 



155 



no longer than it shall be necessary for them to rec- 
tify that nature, — to atone for its offences. Justice 
will not require more than this; else it were ven- 
geance ; nay, gratuitous cruelty. And then how 
will this human soul, made in the Divine likeness, 
emerge like an angel from this ordeal ! How, with 
the redeeming thoughts of the living Jesus upon its 
lips, will it rise to that glorious height of its felicity ! 
How look back with triumphant smiles upon the 
dark and troubled scene of its sojourn here below! 

This is my creed. And it reveals to me now 
what I have vainly sought all my life, — the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ. It enables me to 
love without an effort, — to praise him with my 
understanding. I begin now to perceive what a 
boon life is ; how rich in future blessings. That 
gate, around which your theology has gathered the 
phantoms of a ghastly fear, now opens to me at the 
touch of angelic fingers ; and there comes forth a 
peal from beyond that wins away my thoughts and 
fills them with visions of that brighter abode. 

This is my creed ; while yours would deprive God 
of even the foresight and goodness which is due to 
the merest savage. You make him the Creator of 
this world, with the deliberate purpose of creating 
the great mass of human souls but to endure eter- 



156 * HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



nal torments. For if he made them, and such is to 
be their fate, it must have been so determined by 
him. All things were in his hands, and he is and 
was the sovereign disposer of all things. Accept 
your views ; and then, if you can, show me a single 
human being as weak, as short-sighted, and as cause- 
lessly cruel as your Deity. You cannot do it. 



LETTER X. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

You appeal from my reason to Scripture, and 
ask, What does this teach? But the appeal to 
Scripture is but another way to address my reason ; 
for you expect me to interpret Scripture by the only 
faculty that can be applied to the work, — and that 
is my reason. Scripture is addressed to reasonable 
and reasoning creatures ; and if it fail to recommend 
itself to these, its office is lost. That very author- 
ity which you so venerate must give a reason for 
its claims to our deference before it can be received. 
It is true that reason errs, and thus often misleads 
us. But does reason err in us alone, and not in 
our ancestors ? They may, indeed, have been nearer 
the light that shone amid the darkness of their 
era, and therefore may have had the less occasion 
to exercise their reason. But it is not so with us. 

14 



158 HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

This is our only resource ; and if in us it be de- 
fective, it is our misfortune. We are not, there- 
fore, to cease to exercise it, but to exercise it the 
more, that it may be enlightened and invigorated. 
When your philanthropic associations put the Bi- 
ble into the hands of learned and ignorant alike, 
without note or comment, is not this an appeal to 
their reason ? If, like the Romanists, you with- 
held it, and referred them to the teaching of the 
Church as sufficient, then you might declaim against 
the use of their reason. But now you have given 
up that advantage ; and if you desire to convert 
men, you must meet them on their own ground. 

Now, for my part, I think the Church of Rome 
acts the wiser part. She denies " plenary inspira- 
tion," and thereby makes her interpretation indis- 
pensable to a right understanding of the word. You 
affirm it, and thereby nullify your own authori- 
ty; and invite men to the exercise of that license 
which may be fatal in the end both to Church and 
Scripture, — because you ask too much for both, 
and ask it upon insufficient grounds. You ortho- 
dox people are building up a power that is des- 
tined yet to crush you. When Luther destroyed 
the authority of the Pope, he erected that of the 
Bible in its place. He might have grounded his 



LETTER X. 



159 



reasons for a reformation on clerical abuses, and it 
would have been sufficient. But he must have a 
pope of another kind, from whose infallibility there 
could be no appeal. It answered for a time. But 
it was an error which coming events will be sure 
to use to your detriment. They will leave you 
but two resources, — to lose yourselves in Roman- 
ism or Unitarianism. The age is too wise for the 
former ; and is fast becoming wiser for the latter. 
It is this alone that can save you from a blind and 
blank atheism. 

In referring, then, this question of " eternal pun- 
ishment" to the Bible, as your final authority, al- 
low me to remind you of a fact to which I have 
already invited your attention, — that the writers of 
the New Testament were certainly in error respect- 
ing the approaching dissolution of the world. This 
is undeniable. Well, if they were mistaken in this 
instance, might they not have been in another ? 
If they were fallible men, laboring under the dis- 
advantages of want of education, strong prejudices, 
and narrow Jewish sympathies, were they not very 
likely to be bigoted in their notions, severe in their 
judgments of unbelievers, and rather free in their 
denunciations ? This, from their own showing, 
was their character ; and their writings confirm it. 



160 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



Then were they the very men to fulminate this 
dreadful doctrine. It was but the expression of 
their own tortured and exasperated feelings, wrung 
from them by the contempt, the hatred, the perse- 
cutions of their enemies. How could they think 
otherwise of those bloody-minded and ruthless men 
who hunted, manacled, and slew them, than that 
they themselves would yet be devoured by an un- 
quenchable flame ? This was exceedingly natural. 

Still, I am bold enough to say that the Bible, in 
its general purport, is unfavorable to your views. 
It greatly abates the force of those particular pas- 
sages you refer to, by its gracious and benignant 
descriptions of God and Christ. It tells us that 
" the Lord God is merciful and gracious, long- 
suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth " ; 
that " the goodness of God endureth continually " ; 
that " the Lord is long-suffering, of great mercy, 
forgiving iniquity " ; that " gracious is the Lord 
and righteous, yea, our God is merciful " ; that " to 
the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, 
though we have rebelled against him " ; that " he 
retaineth not his anger for ever, because he de- 
lighteth in mercy"; that "though the Lord cause 
grief, yet will he have compassion according to 
the multitude of his mercies " ; that " mercy re- 



LETTER X. 



161 



joiceth against judgment " ; that " he is not will- 
ing that any should perish " ; and a great deal 
more to the same purpose. All of which goes to 
establish the fact of God's ability and disposition 
to save us. And more than this cannot be neces- 
sary. If able and willing, who can hinder him ? 

And then, in regard to those declarations made 
by and concerning Christ, he says, " I came not to 
judge, but to save the world n ; and again it is said 
of him, that " Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners " ; that " Christ hath redeemed us from 
the curse of the law " ; and " who gave his life a 
ransom for all " ; and " that he might gather to- 
gether in one all things in Christ, both which are 
in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him." 
But it is useless to multiply quotations. Christ 
came to proclaim glad tidings, which are not glad 
tidings if the benefits of his coming are to be re- 
stricted to a few only ; nor can we understand why 
the angelic choir should hail his advent as the an- 
nouncement of " Glory to God in the highest, on 
earth peace, good-will toward men," if shame, and 
pain, and rage are at the last day to drown in 
one universal cry of wrathful despair the harpings 
of angels and the songs of the redeemed. 

The words " eternal" " everlasting," " for ever," 
u* 



162 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



&c.j you must be aware, are often used in the 
Bible in a limited sense ; as, for instance, where 
God promises to the descendants of Abraham "the 
land of Canaan for an everlasting possession " ; 
and to David, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah 
for ever ; and to Solomon, that his " throne shall 
be established for evermore/ 5 So our Saviour ad- 
vises his disciples to u make to themselves friends 
of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, when they 
fail, they may receive them . into everlasting hab- 
itations/' And in a great many other places, which 
it is not necessary to refer to. Which fact, if kept 
in mind while reading the Bible, will serve to cor- 
rect those erroneous judgments which some people 
often hastily fall into respecting the duration of 
future punishments. I say hastily, because there 
seems to be with some a singular pleasure in dis- 
covering any text that favors this dreadful idea. 
They seize upon and exhibit it, as a peculiar treas- 
ure of which they are disposed to boast, without 
one feeling of sympathy for the poor wretches it 
condemns. 

The passage in Matthew in which Christ is rep- 
resented as saying, " And these shall go away 
into everlasting punishment : but the righteous into 
life eternal," — is indeed extremely difficult; for the 



LETTER X. 



163 



word in the original, alaviov, stands at the same 
time for everlasting- and eternal, thus making the 
duration of the punishment as great as that of the 
reward. We cannot limit the one without limit- 
ing the other. If now we were dealing with a 
passage found in a book written with critical ex- 
actness and the nicest regard to the value and 
signification of words, we would feel inclined to 
grant you that the doctrine you adhere to found 
in this passage its most stable foundation. But 
such is not the case, and therefore we must refer 
it to the arbitrament of reason. Besides, in judg- 
ing of the sense of a particular passage, we must 
be guided by the tenor or animus of the whole 
volume from which it is taken, and not make ex- 
ceptions the interpreters of universal truths. So 
are we bound in this instance to have respect to 
God's character, and not so to construe any thing 
in his word as to militate against his goodness or 
the claims of our humanity. If, then, we are guided 
in the present case by these just and obviously cor- 
rect rules, we must seek some other interpretation 
of this passage. 

I will offer you two methods of construing it, 
either of which may be true, or not, Perhaps you 
may say, more ingenious than true. Take which 



164 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



you like, either is better than yours. First, I will 
observe that, in all things pertaining to the eternal 
world, — that world which lies beyond and out of 
the sphere of this, — a certain mode of expression 
is required, which, without so intending it, may con- 
vey to our minds an idea of duration which does 
not necessarily attach to it; as, for instance, we say 
of a state or condition that it is eternal, because it 
belongs to or lies within the sphere of that eternal 
world. So we may say of spiritual life or spiritual 
death that it is eternal, without its being so in our 
conception of its duration. There are forms of ex- 
pression used for the sake of emphasis, which may 
never have been intended to convey the idea you 
claim for them. 

So, in the second place, granting your construc- 
tion to be the true one, it need not imply all you 
think it does. In the attainment of happiness by 
the souls of all living creatures after this life is 
ended, we shall necessarily see a great variety of 
degrees in that happiness. One will exceed an- 
other in these degrees ; and in the difference in de- 
gree will consist the difference in reward ; the least 
happy, although completely so, will be punished 
in not being as happy as the other. And as these 
conditions are eternal, so will the differences be. So 



LETTER X. 



165 



that we may predicate of these various happy states 
the doctrine you hold, without assailing the mercy 
of God. 

Apply this explanation to " the sin against the 
Holy Ghost," which converted Tholuck to your 
views ; and see whether it will extricate it from its 
damning clause of being forgiven " neither in this 
life nor in that which is to come." It may, and it 
may not. I am not particularly anxious about 
it ; for I think the extravagance of the passage is 
its own refutation. In the first place, the sin 
here designated is obscure ; — it is not, as its im- 
portance would demand, plainly described and de- 
fined. It is uncertain. A man may fall into it, 
as into a trap, unwittingly ; and yet it is the most 
heinous of all sins, and the most sure of the most 
dreadful retribution. Surely there is not only great 
disproportion between the sin and its punishment, 
but the most manifest unfairness, — the most glar- 
ing injustice. It seems as if it were propounded 
to tempt us, as it has many, to despair. And 
again, why should a sin committed against the 
Holy Ghost be any worse than a sin against God ? 
Is the Holy Ghost greater than God ? And is not 
the Holy Ghost God ? Surely this distinction is 
gratuitous. A sin is a sin; and the object of it 



166 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



cannot change its nature. Whether it be against 
one person in the Trinity, or against the whole 
three, its character is the same. Or is one person 
in this mystical three more vengeful than the 
others ? For, bold as this question is, the declara- 
tion suggests it, and makes it reasonable. 

So I would object to this whole doctrine of " eter- 
nal punishments," that it is without a cause of 
justification in Him who is assumed to punish. 
And I do it upon this ground, that the sin cannot 
reach to injure him. He can have no motive so 
far to do violence to his love and mercy, — nay, to 
his justice, — as to seek by a judicial sentence to 
inflict eternal misery upon the poor, infirm, erring, 
and sorrow-laden souls of his creatures. We shud- 
der at the thought of the cruel boy who tortures 
for his heartless sport the insect, or the helpless 
animal, that falls into his hands. But the object 
of his persecution soon expires, and its pains are 
ended. It is not so with your God. He pursues 
his victims through the rounds of endless space, — 
pursues and tortures them for ever. Yet he de- 
mands it of us to forgive one another. Why don't 
he set us an example of forgiveness? He whom 
we never have, never can, injure ? 

But you reply, that it is a law of our nature, 



LETTER X. 



167 



and signalizes his government of the world, that 
determines our punishment. But not for ever. 
This is to carry it beyond our nature, and beyond 
the confines of this world. To those inflexible and 
implacable laws which show " no place for repent- 
ance, though we seek it carefully with tears," I 
bow in sorrowful but humble acquiescence ; and 
I look to these laws to wreak their blind vengeance 
upon my suffering nature; and therein I find my 
atonement. Here I am "bound fast in fate." But 
I do not interpret God by these hard, senseless, and 
unyielding laws. I do not by that brutal analogy 
seek to define his emotions and principles of ac- 
tion. I do not say, that, because nature never re- 
lents, God never forgives, — save for reasons which 
dishonor him. I will not believe that the eternal 
world is but an exaggerated picture of this. More 
beautiful, it may be, but more cursed in labor and 
pain. With higher degrees of happiness, but lower 
depths of woe. With somewhat more of goodness, 
but, O, how immeasurably more of sin! For the 
few, the face of divine love, but for the many, 
wrath, and wrath only. No. This I cannot be- 
lieve. Certainly not upon those slight grounds of 
difference we see among men here. Far from it. 
No, I cannot think those deserving of salvation 



168 HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

who are willing to accept that boon in its denial 
to all who are dear to them. I cannot think that 
man a good man, who can complacently look 
around upon the great mass of his fellow-men, and 
say within himself, " These shall all be damned ; 
but, thank God, I shall be saved!" I cannot re- 
gard him as other than a beast, and worse than a 
beast, who, holding these doctrines, will rush into 
matrimony and multiply candidates for the eternal 
burning, merely to gratify his inclinations. Yes, 
and even a lower opinion, if that were possible, 
would I form of the father or the mother who 
would selfishly enter those golden doors and see 
its offspring shut out. No ; the noble, the true 
Christian heart would say, — Let me share the 
torments of those I love, rather than sit in solitary 
security to meditate upon their woes. Let us to- 
gether lift up our complaining voices to Heaven, j 
rather than be separated by that " great gulf." r 
Heaven can be no heaven to me, that exists only 
in a selfish joy. ^ I 

And now to say, that because a man does not 
hold with you the doctrine of the Trinity ; or with j 
the Presbyterians, that of a metaphysical change | 
in his nature; or with the Baptists, that of im- 
mersion ; or with the Romanists, that of the infalli- | j. 



LETTER X. 



169 



bility of the Pope ; — therefore he is to be eternally 
miserable, is a most atrocious sentiment. For I 
can call it by no milder name. It is an attempt 
on the part of each sect to limit to the restricted 
bounds of its own communion the boundless good- 
ness and mercy of God. 

And what a mournful aspect do such views give 
to the fair face of creation ! What multiplied evi- 
dences of disregard on the part of the Creator for 
the creature's future welfare ! What temptations 
and snares are spread around them, in every out- 
burst of generous or hilarious feeling! How many 
unsuspected pitfalls are concealed under the foliage 
and flowers of youthful pleasures, to precipitate the 
unconscious soul into hell ! What damning power 
is given to idle words ! What siren voices lure us 
to destruction in the melody of music! What 
gentle and innocent passions, — what tender affec- 
tions, — conspire to betray us ! And how is all 
nature set in array against us, with its smiles and 
glances, its fruits and its treasures, — and all that 
we may fall into the hands of your revengeful Deity. 
To what desert or what cave shall I fly to escape 
these perils ? In what deep cell bury myself from 
the sound of cheerful voices, — with what exorcisms 
lacerate and subdue the flesh, — with what fastings 



170 



KOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



and vigils turn this pleasant life into a curse, — and 
thus escape the wrath that pursues me ? Alas ! if 
your God desire my perdition, he will find me out 
even here. Perhaps he will detect some flaw in 
my creed. Perhaps I have not received the sacra- 
ments at the hands of a valid ministry. Perhaps I 
don't believe in the " real presence," or in transub- 
stantiation. Perhaps I have not been immersed. 
Perhaps I have not " experienced a change of heart." 
Perhaps I have fallen from grace. And, above all, 
perhaps I don't go to your church. Alas, what 
dangers environ me ! Whichever way I turn, I am 
confronted by some damning dogma. 



LETTER XI. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend,— 

You object to my remarks in the mass, because, 
as you affirm, they go to subvert the fundamental 
doctrines of Christianity, and throw discredit upon 
the sacred volume. Permit me to say, in reply to 
this objection, that in making it you betray a for- 
getfulness of what Christianity really is, as a hu- 
mane and comprehensive revelation of original 
truths ; which, in my view of them, bear but little 
relation to your fundamental doctrines. Because 
certain favorite dogmas are controverted, you affect 
to think religion in ganger, and exclaim that I am 
assailing the Church. Do not, I beseech you, resort 
to this cant ; but have the magnanimity to look the 
subject fairly in the face, without regard to received 
systems. For it is an indispensable condition of 
successfully prosecuting any inquiry in religion or 



172 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



morals, that we first discharge the mind of its pre- 
possessions, and bring a cool and impartial judg- 
ment to the labor. This is, unquestionably, a very 
difficult thing to do. But Truth demands it; and 
she will yield her treasures to those only who seek 
her with loving hearts and candid minds. 

You ask me, if I surrender those sanctions de- 
rived from the doctrines of Scriptural infallibility 
and eternal punishments, which so powerfully ad- 
dress themselves to men's hopes and fears, how 
I am to influence them. What can I teach to 
compensate the absence of these ? But in asking 
these questions, please to remember that I do be- 
lieve in future rewards and punishments. This is 
as much part of my creed as of yours. Only I do 
not say, — and dare not say, — that punishments 
are everlasting. And I might content myself with 
this general answer, — that, if those doctrines you 
hold are not true, I am not to be held responsible 
either for rejecting them, or for the consequences 
which may follow such rejection. It is enough 
for me that they are not true. But I will not con- 
tent myself with this answer, but offer one or two 
other reasons, which I beg leave to commend to 
your thoughtful consideration. 

And the first and most important of these is 



LETTER XI. 



173 



this; — that we should be very careful what senti- 
ments and intentions we attribute to the Supreme 
Being, and always to precede the enunciation of 
any such opinions with the questions, Are they wor- 
thy of him? Do they become the greatness and 
goodness of his character ? And I think, if we will 
do this, we shall find but little real difficulty in 
deciding that the doctrines of the Trinity, of a 
Vicarious Atonement, and of Eternal Punishments, 
are not worthy of him, — that they are a libel upon 
his nature and attributes. 

And then, in regard to what may be the best 
motives for influencing the conduct of men, I 
would lay it down as a final proposition, that sor- 
did or merely selfish motives seldom, if ever, event- 
uate in the display of pure and lofty sentiments. 
The motive not only runs through and animates 
the action; it defiles the object, — it demeans it 
to the same level, and imputes to it like princi- 
ples. Hence Paley, under the influence of your 
doctrines, could give no better definition of virtue 
than this, that it is " doing good to others in obe- 
dience to the will of God, and for the sake of ever- 
lasting happiness." Thus making it a mere mer- 
cantile calculation. Many of your own way of 
thinking reject this definition as too low. But it 

15* 



174 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



is not too low for your creed. For generosity is 
not the offspring of that struggle in which you are 
all engaged with a Deity watchful of every failing 
to take advantage of it to damn you. No, indeed, 
you have no sympathies to waste upon such bar- 
ren sentiments, or energies to expend in disinter- 
ested action. All is made, perforce of your hard 
and precarious condition, to centre in self. It is 
with you, as with soldiers in retreat, sauve qui pent. 
As for your religious duties, they are performed 
with a show 7 of alacrity that deceives nobody but 
yourselves. You must hate the hard service of a 
hard master, who exacts so much against your more 
bounteous nature. Love ! No ; you cannot love 
that which your creed makes unlovable. 

We do indeed see men and women brought into 
the Church by force of these motives ; and they 
often remain there until the day of their death, 
bringing no reproach upon their profession by dis- 
orderly or immoral conduct. But we look at these 
people with a professional eye, — we regard them 
outwardly, — and take no account of what they are 
inwardly, if true to their principles. We do not 
see their hearts. We do not see in these the ter- 
rible ravages of fear, — of this phantom that rises 
up before their eyes in their moments of solitary 



LETTER XI. 



175 



thought. We do not witness the daily painful in- 
quisition upon which they enter in regard to their 
morbidly sensitive feelings, — that diseased con- 
science that leaves them no rest day or night. 
We do not see that frequent self-condemnation 
that eventually breaks down the stamina of their 
character, and prostrates them in helpless alarm in 
presence of this huge superstition. O, no ; we do 
not see all this, so true, and so sad. 

We do not see the sky turned into brass over 
their heads, and the earth into iron under their feet, 
as seen and felt by these miserable disciples, whose 
lives are spent in a contest with the temptations 
of natural pleasures and the tyranny of religious 
scruples ; going through their troubled existence as 
in a round of prison discipline, longing for a larger 
liberty, yet fearing to seek it, lest it lead down to 
the place of woe ; fearing death with a fear too big 
for utterance, yet loving life, not because it is love- 
ly, but because it keeps them from a dreaded here- 
after; hating the very heaven that, in its cold and 
formal occupations, is held out to lure them, yet 
hoping for it to save them from hell-fire; not going 
thither from pure love of its enjoyments, but to 
escape the terrors of a worse fate. 

We do not see the baneful influences of these 



176 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



doctrines, that eat out the heart of all youthful gen- 
erosity and kindness, and turn the warm current of 
a swelling benevolence into the narrow channel of 
selfish cares. We do not see how many thought- 
ful minds it fills with doubts; how many ingenu- 
ous countenances it hardens into hypocrisy. You 
tell them that there is but this one strait and 
narrow path whereon few can walk, and they un- 
certainly; you make it terminate in a heaven pre- 
sided over by a stern Deity, where, upon account 
of your natural and hereditary vileness, you are 
received reluctantly and with manifest expressions 
of disgust, and where, once entering, you find the 
irksome services of your dull conventicle made in- 
tolerable by their eternal uniformity: — and what 
is the consequence of all this ? In some, heart- 
sickness and despondency ; in others, blasphemy ; 
but in many more, contempt and denial. 

Yet, amid this wild incongruity, you boast of 
your peace of mind ! You, who are afraid to smile, 
to pluck a flower, to mingle in the pleasant pas- 
times of an evening, lest the jealous God who is 
watching you take occasion thereby to damn you, — 
O, you are so happy ! You, with dear friends and 
loved relatives going down this broad road in your 
open sight! You love this Deity of yours; his 



LETTER XI. 



177 



worship is your delight, and the contemplation of 
his mercy and goodness fills you with joy! Poor, 
credulous soul ! And you can be happy under 
these impressions ! Well, I would choose to be 
miserable, — very miserable ! Strange enigma, this 
human nature of ours. 

And you think all this infernal machinery neces- 
sary to influence men to forsake error and embrace 
the truth. You think it calculated to inspire them 
with noble and pure sentiments of religious reverence 
and faith, — to make them happy, — pleasant com- 
panions, — fair exhibiters of that religion whose ways 
are pleasantness and all her paths peace. And you 
think to give up this is to give up every legitimate 
means of reform, and to abandon men to the indul- 
gence of their destructive vices. Now I grant that 
your principles might effect some of these ends, 
could men be brought to believe in them. But gen- 
erally they cannot. Nature is too strong in them. 
That which revolts their intuitive perceptions of 
right and wrong can never take any deep and du- 
rable hold upon them. You may move them, you 
may frighten them, torture them, harness them in 
your creeds, and make them walk in your ways 
with military precision. But if they are not good, 
au fond, without all this, trust me, they will not 



178 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



be good with it. You commit the common error 
of supposing that there is no goodness beyond the 
pale of your church. You even go so far, in your 
Articles, as to say that good works done without 
the sanction of your theology " have the nature of 
sin." Heroism, benevolence, charity, brotherly kind- 
ness, patriotism, piety, honesty, love, honor, — all 
go for nothing, — nay, have even " the nature of 
sin," unless done under sanction of, and commun- 
ion with, the one holy catholic Apostolic Church. 
My friend, this nonsense, — this besotted bigotry, — 
may do for some ; but — I hardly know what to 
add, without being violent. 

You think, then, that all salutary and effective 
influences are to be found in your creed, — and in 
yours only. This only shows how little you know 
of human nature. Go abroad into the world, and 
look into our prisons and almshouses ; open your 
eyes upon the tattered crowds whose haggard coun- 
tenances speak to you of intemperance and vice. 
See, even in our respectable coteries, the bloated 
victims of excess and indolence. See dishonesty 
unmasked and trembling in the presence of justice. 
Peer into the haunts of improvidence ; mark there 
the effects of ignorance and brutality. See beauty, 
snared by flattery, lying pale and despairing in the 



LETTER XI. 



179 



den of infamy. See the spendthrift, the gambler, 
the son of pleasure, hiding their shame in the squa- 
lor of cellars and garrets. Gather up these lessons 
into your discourse, and bring them in their living 
hideousness before your congregations, and see if 
they will not move them. There are sermons for 
young and old, about the theology of which there 
can be no dispute. A present hell; an articulate 
misery, crying "Woe ! woe ! in every inconsider- 
ate ear. 

Then, again, go to the high places of honor and 
authority; mingle in the busy marts of commerce, 
and witness the results of honorable trade, — of 
probity, of talents carefully cultivated, of energies 
wisely directed. Look around you upon the show 
of wealth, of elegance, of art, of learning, of home 
comforts, and see in these the rewards of virtue 
and industry. Visit the domestic circles made hap- 
py by affection and moral worth. And from this 
field of observation collect your materials for the 
improvement and instruction of your hearers; and 
you show them a happiness they appreciate, and 
motives that awaken their emulation. These are 
present results, that prophesy to every heart of the 
future. They have their relation to man's moral 
and spiritual nature as well. 



180 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



Nor need you neglect the application of that 
prime authority, sacred Scripture. The experience 
of life is the verification of its wisdom. It is 
through man's living nature it speaks to his con- 
templative ; and goes down into the depths of his 
moral being, to trouble the springs of thought for 
the healing of his soul. For man has a soul, and 
he feels it. There is before him a dim-descried 
future, whose fearful mysteries he would penetrate, 
and not drop from the brink of existence into that 
darkness which is to swallow him, without a light 
to guide him- Amid all his triumphs, his acqui- 
sitions, his labors, his pleasures, he remembers that 
death stands at the door of this glorious temple to 
convey him on his exit to his eternal home. Thither 
his thoughts will wander ; and thence come to him 
those hopes that have been sown in his heart by 
the words of Jesus, — springing up like seeds into 
blossoms of eternal promise. Then point out to 
him the Master who walked this earth, and lived 
only that he might see in him the present and the 
future, — the future breaking in auroral splendor 
upon the door of the grave. 

And then, when you direct his eyes above, fill 
them, not with the terrific lightnings of God's 
wrath, but the sweet radiance that flows from the 



LETTER XI. 



countenance of a tender and compassionate Father. 
Remember that he is Love, and that love is the 
fulfilling of the law. Do what justice words can 
do to the all-embracing affection of his heart. If 
sorrow, or pain, or remorse, shall follow him into 
that undiscovered country, let him not despair. 
There is mercy there for the undeserving. For 
within the eternal round of his domain there is 
no place where sorrow shall seek relief in vain. 
But warn him — warn him with the affectionate 
solicitude of one anxious for his salvation — against 
trusting to that final ordeal, so full of menacing 
terrors. Let him not think that another's merits 
are to save him from the consequences of his sins. 
No, he must be his own atoner. The fire must eat 
out the alloy that debases his affections. Tears, 
tears, bitter tears, must flood the polluted heart to 
make it clean. Many prayers assail the ear of 
Heaven. But the end is sure. O, yes, let us never 
forget God's goodness ! It is this that should bring 
men to repentance. Teach them gratitude, and 
you teach them love. And love conquers all diffi- 
culties. Let them see how great a blessing life is. 
Show them how gloriously it opens into immortal- 
ity. How full of blissful promise it is amid its 
present disquietudes. How like the garden of 

16 



182 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



Eden it may be made by pious thoughts and vir- 
tuous affections. 

And what a treasure lies in these thoughts foi 
the bereaved, the afflicted ! How rich in redeem- 
ing hopes for the poor. — in pleasant scenes of rest 
for the laborious ! How many disappointments 
shall here lift up their heads in joy. How humble 
merit, and modest beauty, and unobserved and si- 
lent charity, and patient, injured minds, shall glow 
and shine forth in palpitating gladness amid the 
brilliant throngs that crowd to do them homage ! 

But I declaim. I must be more sedate. We 
are reasoning, arguing if you please, not preaching. 
"Well, then, consider the influences of your system 
and of mine, as they bear upon the happiness and 
moral character of men. While you would dwarf 
the soul with fear into a mere slave, I would raise 
it to the freedom of a son. While you would con- 
sume the resources of life and exhaust all its sen- 
sibilities in the labor of mortification and repres- 
sion, I would give them the largest play and the 
healthiest action. While you would put an inter- 
dict on all pastimes, all social hilarities, all gay 
and cheerful converse, I would invoke them in the 
name of good morals, and say, with St. Paul, that 
" to the . pure all things are pure." While you 



LETTER XI. 



183 



would sacrifice the present to the future, and bring 
up nothing but clouds and storms from the spirit- 
land to darken this, I would adorn the present with 
new hopes, to reflect back the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ. 

Remember, man needs consolation, — needs it 
above all things. It is not power, or fame, or 
wealth, or friends, can guard his heart from the 
intrusion of care ; can so dazzle his eye as to 
prevent it sending a troubled and tearful glance 
forward into the grave that lies open before him. 
He knows, he feels, that he is mortal. He feels 
the dread distemper already sapping the founda- 
tions of his health. Youth hath scarcely left him 
when he grows old apace. All the while is he 
tending that way on which so many have gone 
before him. And he needs consolation, he needs 
hope, he needs the countenance of a benignant 
and gracious Deity turned toward him. Give him 
these, and he will be thankful ; ay, devoutly thank- 
ful. Why should he not have them ? You pious 
people will send the murderer, with the blood yet 
fresh upon his hands, into the presence of your 
t^rible God as one worthy his mercy, because in 
i his last hour he has shed a few selfish tears and 
confessed your creed ; and yet the useful citizen, 

! 



184 HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

the kind father, the steadfast friend, the honorable 
man of business, the moral, humane, and benevo- 
lent among you, must all sink into endless per- 
dition, hopeless as the most abandoned, because 
they cannot assent to your dogmas and receive 
absolution at the hands of your ministry. If this 
be religion, it is not morality. 



LETTER XII. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

Thus have I attempted in the foregoing letters 
to give you a succinct account of the reasons which 
have led me to separate myself from the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, — a church to whose commun- 
ion I was very strongly attached, and from which 
I have not departed without deep regret. But, 
holding the views I now do, it became impossible 
for me to remain in it. I could not worship three 
Gods, as she worships, while I believe in one, — 
one God and Father, who is above all and with- 
out an equal, and to whom the homage of my 
whole heart and mind is due. Neither could I 
believe that I was to be saved through the merits 
of any other creature, — not even through my own, 
— but by the unbounded mercy of the omnipo- 
tent Lord of heaven and earth. My responsibility 



186 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



centred in myself. I was to work out my own 
salvation with fear and trembling, looking unto 
Jesus as my teacher and example, and striving to 
receive of the spirit that was in him. Neither 
could I so conceive of God as that he had created 
a single soul to be damned to everlasting torments 
for the sins of this short life, in which temptations 
continually assail his virtue, and the weakness of 
his nature is preordained to yield to their influ- 
ences. I could indeed recognize in that nature 
the sanctions of God's great moral law, and could 
accept the penalty that inhered in its infraction. 
But I could not follow out the inflictions of that 
penalty for ever. My heart shrunk from the con- 
templation of this enormous disproportion between 
the offence and the punishment. When punish- 
ment is an end, instead of a means, it can have no 
moral or merciful purpose, — it is the infliction of 
wanton cruelty. 

I might add to these other reasons. I might 
say, in particular, that I object to the doctrine that 
makes faith every thing ; that balances the chances 
of a man's eternal happiness upon the articles of 
a creed ; that leaves so little to character, to piety, 
and the free choice of differing, yet religious minds; 
that would compel all men to think and talk ex- 



LETTER XII. 



187 



actly alike upon a large variety of topics, — see as 
the Church sees, hear as the Church hears, and 
put your conscience in her keeping. This I can- 
not consent to. 

Neither can I consent to receive the Church as 
final authority in any question that appeals di- 
rectly to my own reason. The Church can never 
stand to me in the place of God. If she " speaks 
God's words," as it is affirmed of her, it is to her 
own advantage. But I can hear God's words as 
well elsewhere. As to her authority being of Apos- 
tolic origin and sanction, that is clearly against 
evidence, — the pretension is absurd. And if it 
were otherwise, it should not weigh a feather in 
the scale where it is not supported by her life and 
doctrine. The virtues that inhere in legitimacy 
of successions may do a little longer for the con- 
tinent of Europe, but here they have died out long 
ago. The authority must consist in its religious 
character and intellectual force, or it can command 
no obedience. 

Neither can I consent to her doctrines of bap- 
tismal regeneration and sacramental grace. These 
seem to me like mere superstitions ; and in them 
I recognize an endeavor to subdue the majesty of 
mind to the slavery of serving dumb matter, — 



188 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



wasting its manhood in the idle reverence of the 
ordinary means of physical subsistence. Practi- 
cally, indeed, drawing down the soul to an un- 
meaning idolatry. To baptism and the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper I grant a meaning, and would 
receive them as the customary institutions of Chris- 
tianity, which it would not be well to lay aside. 
But I see no virtue in them beyond the act of the 
actor in which he receives them as a sign of his 
profession, and a memorial of the Author of Chris- 
tianity. So far it is well and becoming. But the 
moment you make them greater than the man, or 
better, you give them an undue, and, I will even 
say, an idolatrous, importance. I am a man, and 
will reverence nothing but what claims kindred with 
the divine in thought and lineament. 

But it would occupy your attention too long to 
go into a detail of the particular objections which 
lie in my mind against this modern hierarchy. As 
a whole, its tendencies and spirit are too conserva- 
tive for the mind of this age. It would fain hold 
progress in check, and bring over the land a gloom 
as dense as that of the Middle Ages. This may 
not be the express desire of all its functionaries, 
but it is the genius of its function. It lives not 
merely in its doctrines, which bear the impress of 



LETTER XII. 



189 



fierce and tyrant passions; but in its ministerial 
assumptions, — in its state, — in its pharisaism, — 
in its contempt for other religious bodies, — its dis- 
dainful declarations of irresponsibility to human 
judgment and public opinion. 

Such an institution may be the custodian and 
disseminator of a great deal of truth, — may, and 
does, widely diffuse a religious influence. But it 
becomes at last a kind of bondage to the mind 
that would breathe the free and expansive inspira- 
tions of the age ; a kind of prison to him who 
would gaze upon the open vault of God's sky in the 
broad field of nature, rather than through stained 
glass windows ; who would prefer to speak from 
the deep intuitions and aspiring thoughts of his 
own breast, rather than be the automaton that ut- 
ters the weekly dole of antiquated creeds and ex- 
ploded dogmas. 

And yet, notwithstanding these objections, I must 
still say that I quit the Church with regret, — with 
unfeigned reluctance, — casting many " longing, lin- 
gering looks behind." This, to be sure, is my weak- 
ness, — touches of the feebleness that bred in me 
affection under her rule. Thus she moulds minds 
to her system. Thus overshadows their intellectual 
culture, and bids them blossom in pale and tender 



190 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



beauty in the still shade of her towers. O, if she 
would adapt herself to the age, how wide and be- 
neficent might be her influence! If she would teach 
the budding mind to think as well as to believe, — > 
if she w^ould throw by her creeds and dogmas, and 
speak from the Bible, as she professes to do, — how 
glorious might she become ! But this we dare not 
expect. And the only question we have to ask 
respecting her future is this, — Is she ever to stand 
erect amid the assaults of science, philosophy, so-, 
cial and political ideas, and maintain her position 
in grim perpetuity ; or is she doomed to fall, like 
some old-world throne, by some sudden revolution 
that reveals the unsoundness of her foundations? 
For my part, I think her perpetuity is insured by 
her very conservatism, — her very dogmatism, — her 
offer of thought for the unthinking, and of just 
enough wisdom to win the ignorant. The world 
is, upon the whole, advancing. But its march is 
slow. Men look forward to a material rather than 
to a mental independence. Besides, people tire of 
thought. To escape controversy, they will take 
refuge even in Rome. How much rather in a 
church that calls itself Protestant, — and is Protes- 
tant in regard to whatever is progressive, revolu- 
tionary, and novel. She speaks to the imagina- 



LETTER XII. 



191 



nation of " old times " ; and what so attractive as 
"old times"! Her moss-covered foundations and 
her ivy-crowned towers belong to the picturesque ; 
and her stained windows, her fretted roofs, her chan- 
cels, altars, surplices, — all awaken the romantic in 
young and old hearts. These are the warrants of 
her continuance. And you may see in some of 
these the ties which I found it so hard to sunder. 
I had made up my mind to live and die in her 
communion, — Homo valde studiosus et diligens. 
But I was destined to be disappointed. When I 
had become comfortably established, and had set- 
tled down amid my books and quiet, pleasant la- 
bors, then, instead of ceasing to think, my mind 
rose into action. I was like the boy that breaks 
his toy to pieces to see what is inside of it; and, 
like him, I find it hollow, — a dark, rude vacuity. 
I loved the Church ; but I loved truth more. I 
had been praying for it all my life ; and when I 
had found it, was I to sacrifice it to a sense of 
comfort ? No ; for even the sacrifice could not 
procure it. It was past thinking about. 

I proceeded at once to turn myself out of doors. 
And if you wish to know how I felt when thus 
self-expelled from my long-loved home, I will tell 
you. I felt like one who has emerged from the 



192 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



dead and stifling atmosphere of some low-roofed 
cabin into the broad, open, limitless dome of the 
sky, with the sweet breath of the morning bathing 
his fevered brow ; with all his energies revived, and 
his heart lifted up to God in the fulness of his 
gratitude. Yes; and so I feel now. The doubts 
and distractions, that, like troubled dreams, once 
oppressed me, have given place to wakeful thoughts 
of peace and tranquil assurance. Nature has re- 
covered the bloom of her lost Eden ; and the Lord 
God walks again in her garden in the cool of the 
day ; and I no longer tremble at the sound of his 
voice, but listen to it, as to the melodious whis- 
perings of the wind amid fragrant arbors. 

But you would demand to know what I affirm 
in regard to the new faith I have adopted. With 
my denials you seem to be sufficiently well ac- 
quainted. This is reasonable, and, to one whose 
religion is defined with the precision of a catalogue 
raisonnee in some department of science, must ap- 
pear quite indispensable. But the demand is not 
so easy to comply with. And in my attempt to 
do so, I can only speak for myself as an individ- 
ual. Unitarians have no creed; they are better 
known by their principles ; and for the expression 
of these no creed is necessary. Faith in God, in 



LETTER XII. 



193 



the mission of Christ, love toward mankind, and a 
careful adherence in conduct to uprightness, char- 
ity, sobriety, and kindness, seem to me to include 
a pretty comprehensive idea of the duty of a Chris- 
tian. You may add what you please to these ; but 
I don't think you can safely omit any of them. A 
man may have more exalted feelings, — more unc- 
tion, — may profess a faith in a variety of doctrines, 
— may declaim about his raptures, and make the 
love of God the theme of the most impassioned 
discourses. But, as it regards those fundamental 
principles of honor and veracity, in which we are 
all directly concerned, I don't think these peculi- 
arities of the least importance. They are his gifts 
and personal advantages. They may be the evi- 
dence of individual worth, or they may not For 
my part, in my long and extensive experience of 
men, they have been to me occasions of suspicion ; 
and I have preferred people who were simply hon- 
est, and less saintly. 

But to come to the point; I will say, I believe 
in one God and Father of heaven and earth, who 
created all things, and by whose power alone all 
things subsist, I believe in Jesus Christ, whom he 
sent to declare his will and manifest his love toward 
men ; who was the " first-born of every creature" 

17 



194 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



— who was " made a quickening spirit,'' — "being 
made so much better than the 'angels," — who was 
"made perfect " through his sufferings; and who to 
this end was " made a little lower than the angels." 
Hence I regard Jesus Christ as a created being, 
no more entitled to my adoration than his mother, 
Mary ; but securing at once my love and venera- 
ation, as one chosen of God, "sanctified and sent 
into the world,"' for the great work of redemption, 
as well from hierarchal despotism, as from igno- 
rance and unbelief. I believe in the Holy Ghost, 
as the spirit of God specially present with Jesus to 
keep him from error, to enable him to do the mir- 
acles he did, and support him under the sufferings 
his fearless and benevolent life exposed him to amid 
a self-righteous and bigoted people. The various 
relations in which Christ stands to us, as Redeem- 
er, Saviour, Mediator, &c., are not of an official, but 
moral nature. Prayer in his name must be ac- 
ceptable to God, because it implies faith in his 
principles. 

In regard to the Bible, I have said before, that I 
receive it as the word of God, in a general sense, to 
w 7 hich there must necessarily be exceptions. These 
exceptions are noted by an unequivocal appeal to 
my moral sense. I cannot mistake them. There- 



LETTER XII. 



195 



fore, I say, there are some things in the Bible, 
which, with my present reverent notions of the 
Supreme Being, I cannot attribute to his sugges- 
tion ; as, for instance, the temptation of Abraham 
to slay his son Isaac; of David to number Israel, 
that God thereby might have an excuse for de- 
stroying so many innocent people ; the many acts 
of lust and savage violence of Samson, ascribed 
to the motions of the spirit of the Lord; the im- 
precations of David in his Psalms, more becom- 
ing the war-songs of a Mohawk chief than " a 
man after God's own heart"; and many other 
offensive things, which were indeed characteristic 
of a half-barbarous people, but utterly at variance 
with our notions of the Divine Being. So we 
may say of words and actions ascribed by the Apos- 
tles to Jesus, that they are unworthy of him, and 
in themselves altogether improbable. 

Still, these facts do not in the least interfere with 
my entire and unqualified belief in the Bible as 
the word of God. They are what are to be ex- 
pected from the characters of the penmen of that 
book, from the character of the age in which they 
wrote, and the common imperfect notions of jus- 
tice and morality common to that age. Indeed, 
I consider this as one of the strongest testimonies 



196 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



to the authenticity of their writings. In their in- 
terpretation, therefore, we must not slavishly fol- 
low precedent and authority; but the discriminat- 
ing judgment of an enlightened moral sense. A 
blind reverence for truth and error alike is dishon- 
orable to God. Bibliolatry is as great a sin as 
any other form of idolatry. It is worshipping the 
creature in place of the Creator. 

And this is one great objection I have to hie- 
rarchal institutions which lay their foundations in 
a remote antiquity, and claim a divine warrant 
for their actions, — that it becomes with them a 
question of vital importance to conserve and per- 
petuate error. The higher their claims, the more 
stringent is this necessity ; for to change is to 
depart from the primitive model and forfeit the 
original sanction. This the Church of Rome well 
knows ; and therefore wisely, though against com- 
mon sense and in the face of adverse facts, de- 
clares herself infallible. The Episcopal Church of 
England and America is either not wise enough 
or not hardy enough to take this step. And yet 
without it she is guilty of a serious self-contra- 
diction ; for she founds her claims to universal 
acceptance upon her Apostolic origin and author- 
ity. If these claims were just, it would only be 



LETTER XII. 



197 



following out, by a legitimate inference, that which 
she teaches, to say openly that she is infallible. 
She propounds her dogmas under such an implied 
belief in her members. It is mere pretence to say 
that she makes the Bible her authority. She does 
no such thing ; because she determines, without 
appeal, what it is the Bible teaches. She decrees 
rites and ceremonies, and has authority in contro- 
versies of faith. She lays exclusive claim (Rome 
excepted) to the possession of a valid ministry, 
and to the legal and spiritual power of a due ad- 
ministration of the sacraments. What more is 
necessary to constitute an infallible Church ? Some 
of her ministers do declare, on their individual re- 
sponsibility I suppose, that she is so. They speak 
of her and Almighty God as one. 

Hence the Episcopal Church can no more change 
than the Romish. It is with one as with the other, 
— quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, in 
relation to every particle that goes to make up the 
harmonious whole of faith, rite, order, vestment, or 
virtue. It is not the modern, but the primitive 
Church ; for " that which is true is not new, and 
that which is new is not true." She disdains the 
light of modern days ; she lives in the crepuscular 
haze of antiquity, in which all that meets the eye 
17* 



198 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



is enormous and grotesque ; where credulity and 
superstition walk hand in hand, and men see a 
spectre in every tree, and hear an oracle in every 
breeze that sighs amid its branches. 

As a result of all this, such an institution will 
set itself against whatever melioration the age may 
attempt, whether in science, religion, or morality. 
This is her disposition; because such meliorations 
tend to discredit her conservatism, and expose the 
rugged and austere features of her system. Noth- 
ing is more favorable to her success in this direc- 
tion than her present liturgy, in which are em- 
balmed all the time-honored ideas of the past ; and 
which she guards with a degree of tenacity com- 
mon to a love of life in the old, when life is least 
valuable. Indeed, I do believe that to rob her of 
one of the smallest shreds of that red rag which 
she holds in her decrepit fingers, as the evidence 
of her descent from the scarlet lady of Rome, would 
be to terminate her existence. 

But the Episcopal Church professes to be a 
purer branch of the Apostolic Church than the 
Church of Rome. And so she is. But she is 
grasping at the same clerical power and influence, 
and the possession of these would develop in 
her the same vices. This is human nature; and 



LETTER XII. 



199 



there is more of human than divine in such in- 
stitutions. 

I would be free from such bondage. Let me 
seek the truth wherever it is to be found. Her 
service can tend but to enfeeble the mind and con- 
tract the heart. Men are mere accidents in her 
history. She disowns alike their individuality and 
their freedom. This idea of a divine right is alto- 
gether wrong. All men have authority to declare 
the truth. The divine right that would consecrate 
error is no divine right for me. 

I have said, in a former part of this letter, that 
the Church worships three gods. Permit a word of 
justification for the charge, and I close. 

The Litany used in her ' morning service opens 
as follows : — 

" O God, the Father of heaven; have mercy upon 
us miserable sinners. O God, the Son, Redeemer 
of the world; have mercy upon us miserable sin- 
ners. O God, the Holy Ghost, proceeding from 
the Father and the Son ; have mercy upon us mis- 
erable sinners." 

Now here are three Gods, each one addressed 
in a separate petition as a God, The following 
makes a further distinction between them as ^//ree 
persons also, — thus clearly representing them as 
three persons and three Gods : — 



200 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



" O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three 
persons and one God ; have mercy upon us mis- 
erable sinners/' 

To be sure in this we have these three personal 
Gods called one God ; but I do not see how that 
helps the matter. The contradiction is not a proof, 
but a disgrace to the functionary uttering it, who- 
ever he may be. Suppose I say, "John is a man, 
James is a man, and George is a man. These 
three are three persons ; but, after all, they are but 
one man." How do I prove this ? Very simply, 
" I call them a trinity." But does calling them a 
trinity make them less than three separate and 
distinct men? Certainly not. I don't think it 
will require, therefore, an argument to establish my 
first affirmation, that the Church worships three 
Gods. To be sure she calls them a Trinity like- 
wise. But what does the word Trinity signify ? 
It signifies three. To say, then, that three are but 
one, is nonsense. 

You reply to me by saying, that, in its applica- 
tion to so great a mystery as the Godhead, it may 
have a more recondite meaning. I don't under- 
stand how that can be. Your calling a thing a 
mystery don't make it so; nor does it justify its 
application to that simple idea of the oneness of 



LETTER XII. 



201 



God which is appreciable by every mind. To put 
forth a mystery as an object of worship, looks very 
much, in this age, like a humbug. But this mys- 
tery is such only because it is an absurdity. You 
don't profess to understand it, and the Church don't 
profess to understand it ; and yet 'tis a damnable 
heresy not to believe it. Had the Church honestly 
said to her members, " There is a dogma which we 
find in an ancient creed, which, indeed, is quite 
inexplicable and very strange. You may receive 
it or not, as it may approve itself to your judg- 
ment. "We retain it, because we find it amid the 
theological heritage transmitted to us from that ven- 
erable era, and so conserve it." Then men would 
have felt very easy about it; and although there 
might have been found some bookworm, or archae- 
ological moth, or erudite Puseyite, to inscribe it 
upon his missal, no wrangling could have come of 
it. But to make it a cardinal doctrine, — this was 
very stupid. 

I don't enter upon this argument here, — so much 
out of place, — because I fear the Church's anath- 
ema. She may go on damning people to the end 
of time, and I doubt that it will turn one hair 
black or white. I add it merely to justify what 
I had previously said upon the subject. Nor would 



202 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



I presume to treat her with disrespect. She is 
herself the very impersonation of respectability. 
Wealth, titles, orders, successions, mitres, crosiers, 
heraldic emblazonings of pedigree, lordly assump- 
tions, and kingly pride, — all awe the observant 
world into a reverent silence. She moves in the 
pomp of processions and surplices to the sound of 
organs ; she ascends the throne of spiritual domin- 
ion, and thence issues her edicts stamped with the 
seal of Apostolic authority. Her enemies wither 
beneath her rebuke, and steal away into oblivion. 

Let us say no more about the dignity of human 
nature. Man is vile. Human depravity is the doc- 
trine with which she represses his rising energies, 
and dooms him to abstinence and obedience. Mor- 
tify the flesh. Abase the intellect. Subdue the 
reason. Cease to think. Hear the Church. What 
a tender mother, to take all this care upon herself ! 
She would perpetuate our infancy, that she might 
always have the pleasure of nursing us. The more 
helpless we are, the more tender her concern. To 
be weak is to be dependent. She knows this. And 
to be dependent is to become a slave. Freedom is 
error. Liberty is licentiousness. Private judgment 
leads down to hell. 

If one could reconcile this to one's conscience, 



LETTER XII. 



203 



would it be better ? Let those who have gone over 
to Rome answer. I doirt mean by this that the 
Church is Roman; she is only Catholic. She does 
not possess the power ; she only grasps at it, and 
abides in the disposition. She affects republican- 
ism in her organization, and regality in her tone. 
A pope is infallible, but a bishop is only divine. 

I must stop here, or you will think I am becom- 
ing disrespectful. Such is not my intention. And 
I am inclined to believe that Churchmen will look 
upon these remarks as rather complimentary than 
otherwise. The terms in which you describe a 
proud man only make him prouder. 



LETTER XIII. 



New York, January, 1852. 

My dear Friend, — 

When I closed my last letter to you, I considered 
that I had said all that it was necessary to say 
upon the subject in discussion between us. But 
I find, upon reflection, that some further consider- 
ation is due to the question of authority claimed 
by you for the Protestant Episcopal Church as a 
branch of that true Catholic and Apostolic body 
now represented in the Roman hierarchy. You 
demand our reception of this branch upon the pre- 
text of its lineal descent from the Apostles, which 
descent legitimates this authority, invests it with 
peculiar sanctity, and gives it that precedence — 
or, as I should say, exclusiveness — to which no 
other body of Christians can or dare prefer like pre- 
tensions. In brief, that therefore you are the Church, 
par excellence, — always excepting the Church of 



LETTER XIII. 



205 



Rome. And it is upon this ground that you stig- 
matize other religious associations as dissenters, be- 
cause they differ from you. And this, mark you, 
not because of difference in doctrine, but in polity. 

Doctrines, of course, in a question of this kind, 
are of minor consideration. The Church, " having 
authority in controversies of faith," and power to 
ordain rites and ceremonies, can set forth or abol- 
ish what objects of credence or observance she 
pleases, because she has Apostolic authority. This 
covers the whole ground. In this, your practice is 
consistent with your pretensions. So, by your 
canon law, you forbid a minister of any other de- 
nomination to enter your pulpits ; while, with 
characteristic self-complacency, you occupy his, — 
because you recognize no other ministry (Rome 
excepted) but your own. So, you unchurch all 
other churches, and call them contemptuously con- 
venticles. If a minister from another church come 
into yours, you reordain him. If, however, he ex- 
ercise the same liberty to depart from you, you 
summon him to trial, you charge him with certain 
grave and unpardonable offences ; not against moral- 
ity, _ something worse than that; not against doc- 
trinal truth, — something still more heinous ; you 
charge him with recusancy, — non-conformity. He 

18 



206 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



may have gone into another church entirely ortho- 
dox in its faith, — into the Presbyterian, for in- 
stance, — as in the case of the Rev. Richard C. 
Shimeall. No matter, you proceed at once to 
" degrade " him in the most offensive manner, — 
to cut him off from the benefit and succors of that 
grace of which you (Rome excepted) are the sole 
depositaries. In this, I repeat, you are consistent. 
Doctrines, morality, piety, intellectual gifts, — though 
not lightly esteemed by you, — are held as things 
subordinate in importance and power to this most 
precious, indefeasible title of Apostolic precedence 
and authority. 

Now what I wish to do in this letter is cursorily 
and briefly to examine this title by the light of your 
own principles and practice ; and to see how far it 
will sustain you in your arrogant claims. My space 
will allow but a sketch of the argument, which you 
may enlarge at your leisure, by reference to those 
authorities which I shall not have room to quote. 

Your bishops claim to be the successors of the 
Apostles ; and thence to derive that ecclesiastical 
and spiritual authority which sets them above all 
other religious dignitaries in the world (Rome alone 
excepted) and subordinates them to their supreme 
direction. Now, suppose we grant this claim to 
Apostolic succession, " for the sake of the argu- 



LETTER XIII. 



207 



ment," — which, after all, is but a clerical fiction, — 
how does it follow as a consequence, that your bish- 
ops inherit Apostolic authority ? The son who suc- 
ceeds to his father's estate does not, by any law 
of inheritance, succeed to the possession of his fa- 
thers personal gifts and virtues. Your bishops 
surely might be successors in the Apostolic office, 
and yet not of then- function. The seal of Apos- 
tolic authority is not to-be looked for upon a piece 
of parchment ; it must inhere in the person, — he 
must do the deeds and display the powers of an 
Apostle, — he must work miracles. The loftiness 
of your claims can be sustained in no other way. 
You may say, that miracles have ceased in the 
Church. Well, then, it must be because the au- 
thority has ceased. Y^ou continue, " they are no 
longer necessary.'' Certainly they are necessary 
to substantiate those claims, — they are too extra- 
ordinary to be allowed under any other evidence. 
The Church of Rome professes to exhibit this sign. 
It is not for me to say how far her professions are 
borne out by her practice ; but it seems to me that 
she is bound, as a Catholic Church, to make them, 
and to sustain them, if she can ; and not, like you, 
recreantly to deny them, and so vitiate her own 
assumptions. To be sure, Christ did endow his 
immediate disciples with extraordinary powers, — 



20S HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 

but not with the ability or right to delegate them 
to you; for it seems you do not exhibit the neces- 
sary proofs of their possession. But you reply, that 
he promised to be " with them to the end of the 
world" ; and inasmuch as the world has not yet 
come to an end. he must have included their succes- 
sors in this promise. "Well, why is he not with you 
as he was with them, if you possess their authority ? 
Why. but because you do not inherit it ? 

No : it is all nonsense to talk about a spiritual 
legitimacy, to which the spirit refuses to testify. A 
spiritual legitimacy in a corporate body, enforced by 
a law of official succession, is one of those monstrous 
conceptions of a dark age. which no intelligent man 
in his senses can regard but with contempt. 

But you claim to be a reformed branch of the 
Catholic Church. — a Protestant Church. — protest- 
ing against that which you allow to be the true 
Church, the Church of Rome. What right have you 
to protest against the Church of Rome? Grant 
that she has erred, is she not a true Church ? Did 
you not come out of her? Is she not your own 
mother, to whom you owe all that you are, — your 
Apostolic succession and authority ? Are you not 
legitimate only because she is legitimate ? I think 
so. But you claim a prior existence. This is fa- 
ble, and not fact. Rome invaded England in the 



LETTER XIII. 



209 



first century ; and in the Roman army there were 
Christian soldiers accompanied by Christian priests. 
They established in that and succeeding centuries 
the Church in Great Britain. From the first, there 
were monastic orders in that island; and the mis- 
sion of the monk Augustine, in the sixth century, 
was to revive Christianity, which had nearly be- 
come extinct, and extend to it the Papal protection 
and care. Indeed, the inhabitants of Great Britain 
had by this time so universally degenerated into 
paganism, that this might be called their second 
conversion, and the true beginning of their Church. 

But let us allow once more, for the sake of the 
argument, that the Church had this priority; was 
it not incorporated with that of Rome, — absorbed 
and lost in it, — so that it ceased to be the British 
Church, and only the Church of Rome in Great 
Britain ; thus, in fact, losing its identity as com- 
pletely as the Church in Lombardy, or Sicily, or 
in any other part of Catholic Europe? The na- 
tionality of the Church was extinguished. There 
was but one Church; for, according to your own 
doctrine, the Church can exist only as a unity. So 
it is not with a church as with a country. Poland 
or Hungary may be subjugated and governed by 
the laws of another power ; but this fact cannot 

18* 



210 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



i destroy the principle of its nationality. To change 
one's religion, it is not necessary to change one's 
citizenship. It is merely a change of mind. Yet 
it is a change more complete and thorough than 
that of citizenship. The people of England experi- 
enced this change. They became Roman Catholics. 

Well ; now came what you call the Reformation ; 
but what in fact was not a reformation, only a re- 
volt. But call it for the present a reformation ; 
and I will ask you, By what right, according to 
your own principles and practice, could you reform 
yourself out of that divinely constituted body, and 
in virtue of w r hat doctrine remain yourself a true 
Church? I would like to have you answer me 
this question. Will you say, Because the Church 
of Rome has erred in doctrine ? But doctrine, by 
your own showing, is not a sufficient justification. 
Do you not excommunicate, or degrade, which is 
the same thing, the clergyman leaving your Church 
now, independently of any considerations of doc- 
trine? And do you not hold the act to be valid, 
because of your Apostolic legitimacy ? Well, 
then, when Rome excommunicated you, upon like 
grounds, did she not for ever deprive you of this 
legitimacy ? Are you not, in virtue of this act, in 
a state of schism ? Judging you by your own 
practice, you are. You are no church. 



LETTER XIII. 



211 



But — mark what I say — you did not reform 
yourselves out of the Church of Rome upon the 
ground that that Church had erred in doctrine or 
in any thing else ; or because you desired to es- 
tablish a purer faith and a more catholic form of 
worship. Nothing of the kind. The reasons for 
that revolt were such as to bring a reproach upon 
your own Church, as well as upon decency, moral- 
ity, and religion. And for these were you excom- 
municated, your ministers degraded, and you for 
ever deprived of any claim to a legitimacy of suc- 
cession. Your Church was secularized, — made a 
mere creature of the civil power ; its " Supreme 
Head " was an adulterer and a murderer, who elect- 
ed your bishops, formed your faith, and compelled 
your worship according to his personal views. And 
I feel bound to add, that Rome had cause thus to 
deprive you and cast you out. Your own vices 
and the vices of your " Supreme Head," as both 
Parliament and your degraded bishops styled Hen- 
ry the Eighth, would have compelled any decent 
Christian body to cast you out. 

What were the immediate fruits of this " Refor- 
mation" ? Henry, as Pope of England, persecuted 
and put to death, not only Papists, but those who 
desired a reformation ; upon the same principle 
that you act, — that Romanism and Orthodoxy 



212 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



were alike inimical , to his supremacy. He en- 
joined, under the severest penalties, the reception 
of the dogma of transubstantiation, the celibacy of 
the clergy, the worship of saints and images, au- 
ricular confession, and the celebration of masses. 
Here was a reformation with a vengeance. Pray 
what did your bishops of that day think of it? 
Your Latimer s, Ridley s, Hoopers, Jewells, Grin- 
dalls, Ponets, &c. ? They looked upon this Apos- 
tolic succession and authority as a mere figment 
of Popery. They saw that the Church had been 
secularized, and they henceforth and for ever cut 
off from any claim to legitimacy. Hence, they for 
a long time refused orders and vestments, and de- 
sired to remodel the Church upon the plan of the 
Continental Reformers. In this they were honest, 
and they were correct. If there ever had been such 
a thing as this Apostolic succession, and in it there 
had inhered any virtue, it was dead to them, for it 
had excluded them, and for very sufficient reasons. 

And how is it even at this day? What kind 
of a royal mother is it that legitimatizes our Yan- 
kee hierarchy ? Is it the scarlet lady of Rome ? 
O, no; it is the Pope Joan of England. For now 
the Church has a Pope Joan, and historians need 
no longer puzzle themselves with antiquity. She 
rules both in the episcopal palace and in the Court 



LETTER XIII. 



213 



of Arches. Rites, ceremonies, doctrines, successions, 
— all refer themselves to her arbitration. She, with 
her council of lay cardinals in Parliament, is the 
Church, — the true Church; and there is none other, 
Rome always excepted. 

Such, too, is our Protestant Episcopal Church ; 
the daughter of England, the legitimate descendant 
of royal harlots and debauchees ; whose bishops 
were, not a few, men of questionable morality, as 
well as good Christians. This is the Church which 
makes her pedigree an occasion for despising oth- 
ers ; that leaves them to the " uncovenanted mercies 
of God " ; that defies their right to expound the 
word and use the sacraments ; as " gentiles of the 
outer court," dissenters, non-conformists, voluntary 
associations, heretics, schismatics, — people to be 
pitied, if contempt allow it. 

We can, to a certain extent, respect this arro- 
gance in Rome, and look upon the Papacy as hav- 
ing been made in some degree venerable by the 
accumulated successes and unbroken predominance 
of some sixteen centuries. Those who are dazzled 
by power and the prestige of a long line of ances- 
try may naturally succumb to its illusive influen- 
ces. They may think that Providence itself has 
lent its sanction to the conservation of its errors 
no less than its truths; that its claims have some 



214 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



foundation in historical facts; and that the unva- 
rying consistency of its conduct with its principles, 
— its sturdy and successful resistance of lay influ- 
ence, — its unfaltering declarations of universal su- 
premacy, — have entitled it to be looked upon as 
the one Universal Church, that has governed the 
world, and may govern it again. 

But for this upstart offshoot of an English lay 
hierarchy, here in America, — this daughter of the 
Church of Pope Henry the Eighth and Pope Vic- 
toria, — the present Joan, — excommunicated and 
writhing under the ban of outlawry from Rome, — 
for this mixed and discordant body to put forth, in 
the midst of a democratic population like ours, 
these arrogant and exclusive pretensions, and to 
attempt to exercise to the extent of the law's suf- 
ferance an ecclesiastical sovereignty alien to the 
genius of our free institutions, — this is a fact for 
which we can entertain no respect, but regard only 
as an evidence of human weakness and pride. 

Why is it that such men as Newman, Manning, 
and Wilberforce — men of immense erudition and 
consummate ability • — have left the English Church 
for that of Rome ? Simply because they knew 
that, with all its pretensions, it was not a church 
in the catholic and legitimate sense, but a mere 
creature of the state, without a title as without a 



LETTER XIII. 215 

♦ 

function. Why is it that Forbes, Huntington, and 
others, whom it may be convenient now to decry, 
but who, in reality, were well read and respectable 
scholars, have also seceded? For the same reasons, 
substantially. For no man, profoundly impressed 
with a sense of the importance of securing the 
Apostolic sanction, — who is conscientiously op- 
posed to an unauthorized and profane meddling 
with sacred things, — can for one moment doubt 
that it is his imperative duty to seek to be recon- 
ciled to Rome. Every Episcopalian, to be true to 
his principles, must follow his example. Else the 
Church in this country must abandon its ground, 
and modestly take its place among other voluntary 
associations. And then, simply considered as an 
organization having in view the better administra- 
tion of its affairs, and as such susceptible of cer- 
tain reformatory modifications suited to the temper 
and intelligence of the age, it may share with 
other religious bodies our deference and respect. 
Under any other aspect, we can but look upon it 
as an impracticable example of bigotry, pretension, 
and intolerance. 

My friend, you may think this language a little 
too plain to be strictly courteous. But if I thought 
it unsuitable to the occasion, you should receive an 
apology for its use. It is not addressed to you per- 



216 



HOW I BECAME A UNITARIAN. 



sonally, save as the representative for the time being 
of an untenable hypothesis. My wish is to explode 
this hypothesis, and to withdraw you from the sphere 
of its influence. And if truth can do it, I have suc- 
ceeded in my endeavor, — at least to the extent of 
the knowledge of that truth. 

I do not indeed dislike the Episcopal Church as 
a church possessing an equal authority among other 
churches. I prefer its regimen and form of service. 
And were she content with these, I could have no 
quarrel with her. But I cannot silently endure this 
supercilious tone, — this petty tyranny of her bish- 
ops and surpliced self-conceit of her priests, — when 
I know how bankrupt they are in reasons and facts 
to sustain them. Spite, I have none. I am too 
well satisfied with my present position and connec- 
tions, to waste an angry thought upon them. Still, 
I would they should know that the feeblest voice is 
not without its influence in the cause of religious 
toleration and truth. 



6 83 



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